Wakeful citizens in bed could scarcely believe their ears. They started up, and listened. Again the joyful tidings were repeated:
"Cornwallis is taken!"
Hundreds sprang from their beds in wild delight. Lights began to appear in the dwellings, darting from room to room. Soon men and women rushed from their habitations into the streets in the greatest excitement. Some were half dressed, scarcely knowing, in their exuberance of joy, whether they were in the flesh or out. Many wept to hear the news confirmed, and as many laughed. Not a few caught up the watchmen's cry, and ran from street to street, announcing, at the top of their voices:
"Cornwallis is taken! Cornwallis is taken!"
Every minute added to the throng in the streets; men, women, and children joining in the exhilarating exercise of sounding out their excessive delight upon the night air. Neighbors clasped hands and embraced each other to express their gladness. Many were too full for utterance; they broke down in tears with their first attempt to join in the general acclaim. Such a varied, impulsive, uncontrollable expression of joy was never before witnessed in that city.
Soon the bell on the old State-House rang out its gladsome peals, the same old bell that signalled the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. Other bells, one after another, united in the grand chorus of jubilation, supplemented by the thunder of artillery from the fortifications about the city, until every method of expressing real joy seemed to combine, as if by magical art.
At an early hour on the next morning Congress convened, and listened to the reading of Washington's letter, announcing the surrender of Cornwallis. The scene can be better imagined than described. That body was quite unfitted for the transaction of any business, except that which eulogized the commander-in-chief, and the brave men who had fought the battles of the country. Irving says:
"Congress gave way to transports of joy. Thanks were voted to the commander-in-chief, to the Counts De Rochambeau and De Grasse, to the officers of the allied armies generally, and to the corps of artillery and engineers especially. Two stands of colors, trophies of the capitulation, were voted to Washington; two pieces of field ordnance to De Rochambeau and De Grasse; and it was decreed that a marble column, commemorative of the alliance between France and the United States, and of the victory achieved by their associated arms, should be erected in Yorktown."
Finally, Congress issued a proclamation, appointing a day for general thanksgiving and prayer, in acknowledgment of this signal interposition of Divine Providence.
This done, Congress adjourned to assemble, at a later hour, in a public house of worship, there to join, with the grateful multitude, in praise and thanksgiving to God for His blessing upon the cause of liberty.