COMTE DE GRASSE.
From the London Mag., Aug., 1782, p. 355. There is a profile head in The Operations of the French fleet under the Count De Grasse (N. Y. 1864).—Ed.
On the night of the 5th and 6th of October the first parallel was opened, at a distance of between five and six hundred yards from the enemy's works. It extended from the river bank below the town to a deep ravine nearly opposite the centre of the besieged lines. A battery on the bank above the town opposed a battery of the enemy in that quarter, and also prevented the British fleet from enfilading the works. Guns were mounted and fire opened from this parallel on the afternoon of the 9th. The ground was singularly favorable to the construction of the approaches, and by the night of the 11th and 12th the works were in such a state of forwardness that the second parallel was begun, not more than three hundred yards from the British lines. On the extreme right, however, there were two redoubts, commanding this parallel, which on the night of the 14th and 15th were carried by storm,—the smaller one, on the right, by Lafayette's division, the advance being commanded by Alexander Hamilton; while the one further away from the river was stormed by a party of French infantry commanded by Colonel G. de Deux-Ponts, the Baron de Viomenil having command of the division. The loss on the American side was inconsiderable, but that of the French was severe, the redoubt carried by them being larger and much more strongly garrisoned. Before morning the two redoubts were included in the second parallel. Cornwallis, hoping for relief, determined to prolong the defence as long as possible. To this end, on the morning of the 16th, Lieutenant-Colonel Abercrombie led a determined but useless assault on two batteries at the French end of the trenches. Cornwallis next tried, on the night of the same day, to cut his way out by passing his men over to Gloucester Point; but a storm arose in the midst of the ferrying, and the enterprise, hazardous at best, was abandoned.
An assault becoming practicable, at ten o'clock of the morning of the 17th, four years since Burgoyne's surrender, a drummer-boy appeared on the parapet and beat a parley. Negotiations were begun, but, though pushed with the greatest energy by Washington, the final articles were not signed in the trenches until two days later, on the 19th. On that day, at noon, two redoubts were taken possession of by detachments from the French and American forces. At two in the afternoon the British army, with colors cased and drums beating "The World turned upside down", marched out and laid down their arms; O'Hara, in the absence of Cornwallis, making the formal surrender to Lincoln, Washington's representative.
At the beginning of the siege the British numbered not far from seven thousand men of all arms,—perhaps a few more. On the day of the capitulation, according to Cornwallis, little more than thirty-eight hundred were fit for duty, including the garrison at Gloucester Point. The allied army is usually given at sixteen thousand men,—nine thousand Americans, including thirty-five hundred militia. The French numbered probably more than seven thousand. The total British loss during the siege was five hundred and forty-one, including the missing. The allied loss, excluding the missing, was seventy-six Americans and one hundred and eighty French. It has been stated that, at the time of the surrender, there were about fourteen hundred unfit for duty in the allied camp. This great victory, due even more than most victories to chance, virtually ended the war. It remains only to describe the closing scenes in the South.
CAPITULATION OF YORKTOWN.
From a fac-simile of the articles in Smith and Watson's Hist. and Lit. Curios., 1st ser., 6th ed., pl. xxxiv. Cf. Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 523. The articles are given in Shea's Operations of the French fleet, p. 78; R. E. Lee's ed. of Lee's Memoirs, 509; Tarleton, 438; Polit. Mag., ii. 67; Sparks's Washington, viii. App. 8; Cornwallis Corresp., App.—Ed.