BATTLE AT YORKTOWN.
Yorktown is a port of entry in Virginia, 70 miles E. S. E. from Richmond, on the south side of York river, opposite Gloucester. The British army from the South had encamped at this place and fortified it. Col. Bigelow had arrived with his regiment to join Gen. Green. Col. Bigelow is now in Gen. Lafayette's detachment. Lafayette's second officer is Col. Hamilton, aid-de-camp of the commander-in-chief, a young man of the highest expectations, and accompanied by Col. Laurens, son of the former President of Congress.
Another detachment was commanded by the Baron de Viomesnit, the Count Charles de Damas, and the Count de Deux-Ponts. The commanders addressed their soldiers a short exhortation to inflame their courage; they represented that this last effort would bring them to the close of their glorious toils. The attack was extremely impetuous. Gen. Lafayette is ordered to attack the right redoubt, while the Baron de Viomesnit is to attack the left. This was done at the point of the bayonet. Suffice it to say, that both redoubts were carried. One of Col. Bigelow's men, on being inquired of by the writer where his Colonel was at this time, answered, "Why, old Col. Tim was everywhere all the time, and you would thought if you had been there, that there was nobody else in the struggle but Col. Bigelow and his regiment." Before the morning of the 19th, those redoubts were all repaired and manned by the allies.
Now comes the celebrated 19th day of October, 1781. The day began to appear, the allies open a tremendous fire from all their batteries; the bombs showered copiously, the French fleet, under the command of Count De Grasse, are opening a most deadly fire from the harbor. Lord Cornwallis sends in a flag to General Washington, proposing a cessation of arms for twenty-four hours. Washington would not consent to it, and would grant but two hours, and during this interval he should expect the propositions of the British commander. The proposition is made and accepted. The British flotilla, consisting of two frigates, the Guadaloupe and Fowey, besides about twenty transports (twenty others had been burnt during the siege), one hundred and sixty pieces of field artillery, mostly brass, with eight mortars, more than seven thousand prisoners, exclusive of seamen, five hundred and fifty slain, including one officer (Major Cochrane), were surrendered into the hands of the armies of France and America, whose loss was about four hundred and fifty in killed and wounded.
At the news of so glorious, so important a victory, transports of exultation broke out from one extremity of America to the other. Nobody dared longer to doubt of independence. A poet in Col. Bigelow's regiment, made a short song commemorative of this event, in which occurred these lines,
"Count DeGrasse he lies in the harbor,
And Washington is on shore."
A wag in Worcester, after they had returned, changed it so as to make it read thus:
"Count DeGrasse he lies in the harbor,
And Bigelow is on shore."
Such was the end of the campaign of Virginia, which was well nigh being that of the American war. This laid the foundation of a general peace. Thus ended a long and arduous conflict, in which Great Britain expended an hundred million of money, with an hundred thousand lives, and won nothing. The United States endured great cruelty and distress from their enemies, lost many lives and much treasure, but finally delivered themselves from a foreign dominion, and gained a rank among the nations of the earth.