What role did the Battle of Yorktown play in the revolutionary war?
It effectively ended the war! Yorktown, Virginia founded in 1691, was a busy 18th-century tobacco port but the town is best remembered as the site of the Battle of Yorktown, which effectively ended the Revolutionary War. Nine 18th-century buildings survived the 1781 Battle of Yorktown and can still be seen. In the late summer of 1781 when George Washington and Rochambeau heard of Lord Cornwallis’ encampment in Yorktown they raced southward from New York to link up with the French fleet under Admiral Comte de Grasse in Chesapeake Bay. Washington arrived just in time to bottle-up the British, who were anticipating reinforcements that never came from either General Henry Clinton or the British fleet. Off shore, the French fleet effectively blocked aid from Cornwallis while Washington made life unbearable for the British troops with three weeks of shelling. Thomas Nelson a signer of the Declaration of Independence was also engaged in the final siege of Yorktown. Nelson being a true patriot
