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Yorktown   /jˈɔrktˌaʊn/   Listen
Yorktown

noun
1.
A historic village in southeastern Virginia to the north of Newport News; site of the last battle of the American Revolution.
2.
In 1781 the British under Cornwallis surrendered after a siege of three weeks by American and French troops; the surrender ended the American Revolution.  Synonym: siege of Yorktown.






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"Yorktown" Quotes from Famous Books



... reprisals, there was great dismay at the weakness of the garrison there, and bitter denunciations of Lee for leaving so small a force behind. The Union troops for this counter-invasion were landed at Yorktown and sent on to the White House. General Getty, in command of one column of about seven thousand men, moved on the 13th as far as Hanover Junction to destroy the bridge over the North and South Anna, and as much of the railroad as possible, in order to ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday

... Northern Virginia steadily confronted it, ever ready to receive any attack. At Cold Harbour they paused, facing each other, and General Grant, having received sixteen thousand men from Butler by way of Yorktown on June 1st, made an attack, but found our lines immovable. In his "Memoirs" ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... the first time created, feelings of friendliness between the Belgians and the Dutch. There are to be found Belgian statesmen who regret the proclamation of Belgian independence. When in 1881 the Americans celebrated at Yorktown the centenary of British defeat, they went out of their way to display their goodwill towards Great Britain. Plaudits and toasts, it may be said, prove nothing except the existence of a sentiment which, even if it be genuine, is certain to be evanescent. This is true; but the matter for consideration ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... to remark that Washington would probably have ended with equal failure, had his country not met that foreign aid for which they honourably begged. It is useless to remark that he would undoubtedly have failed, if after the glorious battle of Yorktown he had met a fresh enemy of more than two hundred thousand men, such as we met, and had been forsaken in that new struggle by all the world. It is useless to remark that success should not be the only test of virtue on earth, and fortune should not change the devotion of ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... Benjamin F. Butler, fresh from the life of a successful lawyer, then in command at Fortress Monroe, where he arrived on the 1st of June, 1861. While there he conducted several important reconnaissances in the direction of Yorktown and Big Bethel, and thus became acquainted with a region in which he was afterwards to play a most important part. His services lasted something less than two months, and became still more notable from the fact that they made him thoroughly acquainted with General Butler. They were brought ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson

... Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. The new Republic was then beset with danger on every hand. It had not conquered a place in the family of nations. The decisive battle of the war for independence, whose centennial anniversary will soon be gratefully celebrated at Yorktown, had not yet been fought. The colonists were struggling not only against the armies of a great nation, but against the settled opinions of mankind; for the world did not then believe that the supreme authority of government could be safely intrusted ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... Colonies, and in 1781, in consequence of wretchedly bad strategy, had lost command of the sea. The French had been helping the revolted Americans, not for love of them, but from enmity to their rivals. After the capitulation of the British troops at Yorktown, a number of loyalists still held out under discouraging conditions in Canada, and the French desired to dislodge them from the ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott

... the spoils, while, even in their own eyes, they seemed to have gained honour and glory in the same proportion. The last real campaign was fought in 1781 and ended with the British surrender at Yorktown. From that time on peace was in the air. The unfortunate ministry, now on the eve of political defeat at home, were sick of civil war and only too anxious for a chance of uniting all parties against the ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... the difficulties which lasted during the whole of the war, the winter of Valley-Forge recals others still more painful. At Yorktown, behind the Susquehannah, congress was divided into two factions, which, in spite of their distinction of south and east, did not the less occasion a separation between members of the same state. The deputies substituted their private ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... away, and the people of England are groaning under the burden incurred by the fruitless attempt to subdue the Colonies. The struggle is over. Lord Cornwallis has surrendered his army to General Washington at Yorktown, and commissioners are negotiating a peace. Through the years Abel Shrimpton, unreconciled to life's changes, has been cursing Samuel Adams and John Hancock for having led the people to rebel against the king, not seeing that Divine Providence ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... unvarnished truth; God forbid; the jackal press; that memorable occasion; tooth and nail; the God of our fathers; the awful horrors of Valley Forge; the blood-stained heights of Yorktown; tell it not in Gath; proclaim it not in the streets of Askalon; peace with honor; the Arabian Nights; Munchausen; the fathers; our globe-encircling domain; I am a Democrat; the pirates of the Barbary Coast; Democratic gospel pure and ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... villages that stood very near the shores of Chesapeake Bay, and almost opposite the now historic site of Yorktown, came one biting day, in the winter of 1607, an Indian runner, whose name was Ra-bun-ta. He came as one that had important news to tell, but he paused not for shout or question from the inquisitive boys who were tumbling about in ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks

... distance to the south," I added, "is the old house where Washington made his headquarters during the most discouraging years of the Revolution, and in which he and Rochambeau planned the campaign which ended with the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. And not far away is 'Sleepy Hollow,' where Washington Irving lived, ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams

... Connecticut drew his sword in defense of the colonies at the outbreak of hostilities, taking part in the battle of Bunker Hill; and from that time forward he and "Light Horse Harry" served in the Continental army under Washington until Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... but saved from annihilation by his inborn fearlessness and superiority, when death was all around him and dismay everywhere in Braddock's disastrous fight—their silent homage crowning the head of their deliverer; his triumphant sword at Yorktown put the crowning hand to the immortal work—the work that founded this great nation; yet we could never infer from a word or hint in the course of these letters, from first to last, that he had anything to do with the work, except as the name of "Sergeant Cornelius" incidentally falls from ...
— Washington in Domestic Life • Richard Rush

... they were building the Republic, when they stood side by side amid the sufferings of Valley Forge, and when they saw the army of a mighty monarch surrender to the valor of American soldiers at Yorktown. With the enthusiasm of a missionary and the impetuous zeal of an evangelist, he went about rebuking the politicians, and preaching in behalf of peace, ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris

... And so she started down the river on her trial trip, but intending, nevertheless, to do battle with the strongest ships of the United States navy. Accompanying her were four small Confederate gunboats,—the "Beaufort," the "Yorktown," the "Jamestown," and the "Teaser." Soon rounding out into Hampton Roads, the little squadron caught sight of the Northern fleet at anchor, and made for them. An officer on the "Congress" thus tells the story of the events ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... religion, and had ineradicable place in the great muniment of national being. It appealed to the individual conscience as well as to pride, patriotism, piety, and interest, and it won, and now celebrates a victory immeasurably greater than that of Yorktown or Waterloo or Marathon. Those were the victories of nation over nation, or at the utmost of a principle of limited application. We celebrate the successful battle of the grandest principle in human organization; that ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... sounding, going to Quebec; again on his way to debate questions of importance with Tarleton, at the Cowpens—lastly, to crush the Tory rising on Lost River, about the time when "it pleased heaven so to order things, that the large army of Cornwallis should be entrapped and captured at Yorktown, in Virginia," as the chronicles inform us. All these men of the past has Winchester looked upon, and many more—on strange, wild pictures, and on many histories. For you walk on history there and drink the chronicle:—Washington's old fort is crumbling, but still visible;—Morgan, ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke

... what was in store for him as the King, sailed for Boston with his principal. They carried with them two millions and a half in silver,—a great help to Washington in the movement southward, which ended with the capitulation of Yorktown. While in Paris, Paine was again seized with the desire of invading England, incognito, with a pamphlet in his pocket, to open the eyes of the people. But Colonel Laurens thought no better of this scheme than General Greene, and brought ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... following a retreating foe, the cavalry is sent in the advance, supported by some infantry and horse artillery, to harass the rear guard, and, if practicable, delay the retreat until the main army can come up. This was the case in the peninsula campaign, from Yorktown to the Chickahominy. Again, the exact position of the enemy may not be known, or he may have large bodies in different places, so that his intentions cannot be surmised. It is then necessary to scatter the army so as to cover ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Robinson's class, which was attacking the subject of the Revolution, while Rebecca was bidden to begin with the discovery of America. In a week she had mastered the course of events up to the Revolution, and in ten days had arrived at Yorktown, where the class had apparently established summer quarters. Then finding that extra effort would only result in her reciting with the oldest Simpson boy, she deliberately held herself back, for wisdom's ways were not those of pleasantness ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... happens, a prince, a duke, an archbishop, an author of celebrity, a Tom Hughes, a Lord Houghton, a Dean Stanley, or some descendant of our French allies at Yorktown, comes on a visit to our country, one of the most satisfactory forms of entertainment that we can offer to him is a morning reception. At an informal matin,e we may bring to meet him such authors, artists, clergymen, lawyers, editors, ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... Washington set out from Mount Vernon on his journey to the West. Even the least romantic mind must feel a thrill in picturing this solitary horseman, the victor of Yorktown, threading the trails of the Potomac, passing on by Cumberland and Fort Necessity and Braddock's grave to the Monongahela. The man, now at the height of his fame, is retracing the trails of his boyhood—covering ground over which ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... At Yorktown, that city of eld, we landed to take in a cargo of freight, not neglecting the usual store of oysters, of which we had at supper a sumptuous feast and it was from no fickle epicurean fancy that all pronounced these delicious bivalves the finest in the world, for, certainly, never before or since ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... conclude honorably a most disastrous war. The Comte de Saxe was in his forty-ninth year when he gained the Battle of Fontenoy;[C] and later he won other successes. Rochambeau was in his fifty-seventh year when he acted with Washington at Yorktown, in a campaign that established our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... rallying he was defeated at Brandywine and Germantown in 1777; next year, in alliance with the French, he drove the British out of Philadelphia, and in 1781 compelled Cornwallis to capitulate in an attack he made on Yorktown, and on the evacuation of New York by the British the independence of America was achieved, upon which he resigned the command; in 1789 he was elected to the Presidency of the Republic, and in 1793 was re-elected, at the end of which he retired into private life after ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... the visiting skipper to Blackbeard, "they're determined and set against you this time. I tell you, Captain, Governor Spottiswood hath issued a hot proclamation against you, and 't hath been read out in all the churches. I myself saw it posted in Yorktown upon the customhouse door and read it there myself. The governor offers one hundred pounds for you, and fifty pounds for your officers, and twenty pounds each ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... America, and members of the families descended from our foreign sympathizers and helpers, General Lafayette, Count de Rochambeau, Count de Grasse, Baron von Steuben, and others, who were present at the Centennial celebration of the victory at Yorktown. The chairman, James M. Brown, Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce, proposed the following toast: "The French Alliance; the amicable relations between our two countries founded in 1778, by the Treaty of Amity ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... seamen to man the privateers and the ships of the Continental navy, slinging their hammocks on the gun-decks beside the whalemen of Nantucket. These fishermen and coastwise sailors fought on the land as well and followed the drums of Washington's armies until the final scene at Yorktown. Gloucester and Marblehead were filled with widows and orphans, and half their men-folk ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... elegantly furnished than magnificently built. Chastellux was astounded at the taste and richness of the ornaments and permanent fixtures, and declared of the Nelson Home at Yorktown that "neither European taste nor luxury was excluded; a chimney piece and some bas-reliefs of very fine marble exquisitely sculptured were particularly admired." As Fisher says of such mansions, in his interesting Men, Women and Manners in Colonial Times: "They were crammed from cellar ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... constitution. Long and desultory debates followed and it was not until late in 1777 that Congress presented to the states the Articles of Confederation. Provincial jealousies delayed ratification, and it was the spring of 1781, a few months before the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, when Maryland, the last of the states, approved the Articles. This plan of union, though it was all that could be wrung from the reluctant states, provided for neither a chief executive nor a system of federal courts. It created simply a Congress of delegates in which each state had an equal ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... Cornwallis selected Yorktown, and began to fortify it strongly. This was early in August, 1781. On the 14th Washington heard with delight that a French fleet was on its way to the Chesapeake, and at once decided to hurry to Virginia, and surround Cornwallis by land while the French cut him off by sea. ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... between this winter at Valley Forge and the surrender of Cornwallis with all his army at Yorktown, but these we shall take up in a later chapter. Washington had led his army through the valley of despair, and never again while the war lasted was the ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy

... comparatively, of gunpowder captured with the Navy Yard at Norfolk, with that on hand from other sources, had been distributed to the army gathering on the Potomac, to Richmond, Yorktown, Pensacola, Mobile, New Orleans, and other places; scarcely any being left for the force assembling under the command of General Albert Sidney Johnson, in Kentucky. The Federal forces, having the requisite advantages for equipment and transportation, were assembling ...
— History of the Confederate Powder Works • Geo. W. Rains

... arrival at Yorktown, Kilpatrick gave me despatches for the authorities at Washington. President Lincoln, learning that I had just returned from the raid, sent for me, and I had a memorable interview with him alone in his private room. He expressed profound solicitude ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... public property fell, with the city, into the hands of the British general, who entered it on the 26th of September (1777). The members of Congress separated on the 18th, in the evening, and reassembled at Lancaster on the 27th of the same month. From thence they subsequently adjourned to Yorktown, where they remained eight months, till Philadelphia ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... preferred to remain in Paris, where she had my aunt Gary's company and could receive the American news regularly. Her words were bitter and scornful about the successes of the Northern army and McClellan's fruitless siege of Yorktown; so bitter, that papa and I passed them over without a word of comment, knowing how they ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... "Peggy Owen at Yorktown" details how Peggy goes to Virginia to nurse a cousin, who is wounded and a prisoner. The town is captured by the British under Benedict Arnold, the traitor, and Peggy is led to believe that he has induced the desertion of her friend, John Drayton. Drayton's rescue from execution as ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... with him to eat or drink. He says he felt fine and did his work better than when he had been where the food was palatable and he had eaten heartily. Of course he swears by the Extract and never takes a trip now without taking a good supply with him.—Mrs. H. L., Yorktown Heights, Westchester ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various

... and French soldiers, gained a signal victory. An American and French army under Washington and Lafayette and a French fleet under De Grasse suddenly closed in upon the British general, Lord Cornwallis, in Yorktown, Virginia, and compelled him to surrender on 19 October, 1781, with over 7000 men. The capitulation of Cornwallis practically decided the struggle in America, for all the reserve forces of Great ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... straight-backed chairs, and old sideboard laden with family silver, besides a much-coveted mahogany cellaret containing some of that very rare Madeira for which the host was famous. Here were more easy-chairs and more portraits—one of Major Horn, who fell at Yorktown, in cocked hat and epaulets, and two others in mob-caps and ruffles —both ancient ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... Otis decided that something must be done at once to relieve them. A rescuing party was formed and placed aboard the "Yorktown," which carried them around the southern point of Luzon and then northward to the mouth of the ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey

... digging—all that fixing up forts for big guns that nobody has a chance to fire because the Johnnies get out just when everything's ready to blow 'em into the Union again. A—h!" he added in disgust, "didn't we have a dose of that at Yorktown and Williamsburg? Why doesn't Little Mac start us hell-bent for Richmond and let us catch 'em on ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... stirring times here. Our troops are to be marched through Richmond immediately, for the defense of Yorktown—the same town surrendered by Lord Cornwallis to Washington. But its fall or its successful defense now ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... Ferry (Loudoun County), where the river was broad but shallow, near the scene of Evan's victory over the Federals in the previous October, and where Wayne had crossed his Pennsylvania brigade in marching to the field of Yorktown, in 1781.] ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

... New York Times is now boiling with patriotic wrath against McClellan. Very well. But when McClellan captured maple guns at Centerville and Manassas, when he digged mud and graves for our soldiers before Yorktown, and in the Chickahominy, the Times was extatic beyond measure and description, extatic over the matured plans, the gigantic strategy of McClellan—and at that epoch the Times powerfully contributed to confuse the ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... held our country together has been disbanded, and from its ruins has sprung a political organisation trusting for its success to sectional prejudices. It excludes from its councils the people of nearly one-half of the Union; it seeks a triumph over one-half our country. The battlefields of Yorktown, of Camden, of New Orleans, are unrepresented in their conventions; and no delegates speak for the States where rest the remains of Washington, Jefferson, Marion, Sumter, or Morgan, or of the later hero, Jackson. They cherish ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... index hand with the words "TO FRANCE." To France, land of suffering humanity, in whose devastated fields again must be saved the same principles for which Americans fought at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga, at Yorktown, at Gettysburg and in the Wilderness; to France, where the fate of the world is still pending; to France, which has again checked the Huns of the modern world as it did those of the ancient; to France, the manhood of this nation must now be directed, to save the heritage of the American Revolution ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... tyrant. When the smoke of battle had dissolved into thin air; when the precious right to be free and sovereign had been stubbornly fought for and reluctantly conceded; when the bloody memories of Yorktown and New Orleans had passed into glorious history, the black man, who had assisted by his courage to establish the free and independent States of America, was doomed to sweat and groan that others might revel in idleness and luxury. Allured, in each instance, ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... old. At the breaking out of the war of the Revolution, after the battles of Concord and Lexington, he went with a Connecticut company to join the Continental army, and was present at the battle of Bunker Hill. He served until the fall of Yorktown, or through the entire Revolutionary war. He must, however, have been on furlough part of the time—as I believe most of the soldiers of that period were—for he married in Connecticut during the war, had two children, and was a widower at the close. Soon after this he emigrated to ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... gallantry could save from a fearful death at San Domingo; and Gimat, aide to Lafayette now, but who afterwards led Lafayette's van as colonel in the successful assault of the British redoubts at Yorktown; and La Colombe, who was to serve Lafayette faithfully in France as he served him here; and Ternant, distinguished in America, France, and Holland, but who this year rendered invaluable service to American discipline by his aid in carrying out the reforms of Steuben. ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... Revolution, Marshall went to Yorktown, somewhat before Cornwallis occupied it, to pay a visit, and there he saw Mary Ambler at the age of fourteen. She became his wife in 1783. Her father was Jacqueline Ambler, the treasurer of the State of Virginia. She lived with him forty-eight ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... haste you failed to notice that "York" spells 47, and you then proceed to try Inclusion by Genus and Species; regarding York as the general word, you would find New York as a species or kind of York; the same with Yorkshire, Yorktown, York Minster, etc. In this way you would, if your mastery of the Figure Alphabet were perfect, scarcely fail to notice that York spells 47; but if you fail, you then try Inclusion by Whole and Part, and run over the political divisions ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)

... fathers went through the gloom of that terrible time, and still fought on. Brave men wrote grand words, cheering the despondent, brave men did brave deeds, the rich man gave his wealth, the poor man gave his life, until at last, by the victory of Yorktown, the old banner won its place in the ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll

... and a chapter or two of history, that the mother-country does not too fondly or frequently remember. But I am not going to write now of the Bunker Hill Monument, nor of the achievement at New Orleans, nor of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. I want to tell of another land nearer its infancy than ours, with a history scarcely three-quarters of a century old, but with one monument, at least, that is well worth seeing, and that cannot be thought of without ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various

... in the Gulf of Mexico. A small squadron, consisting of the frigate Constellation and the sloop of war Boston, under Commodore Kearney, is now on its way to the China and Indian seas for the purpose of attending to our interests in that quarter, and Commander Aulick, in the sloop of war Yorktown, has been instructed to visit the Sandwich and Society islands, the coasts of New Zealand and Japan, together with other ports and islands frequented by our whale ships, for the purpose of giving them countenance and protection should they be required. Other smaller vessels have been ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren

... hurled her extremely heavy ball in, under her water-line. The ram backed out, and, wheeling and putting on full steam, returned to her haven. She was, it appears, too low to cross the bar to go up to Richmond, and was not ocean-going; she was blown up when Yorktown was evacuated by the ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... and his heart was filled with lasting gratitude. When the campaign opened in the spring, the young man was with his regiment near Yorktown, Virginia. They were ordered to attack a fort, and he fell at the ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... Lafayette; Cornwallis shuts himself up in Yorktown.—When Lord Cornwallis got into Virginia he found Benedict Arnold waiting to help him. Arnold had been a general in the American army; Washington gave him the command of the fort at West Point, on the Hudson River,[31] and trusted him ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery

... colored children can remain in school only long enough to get a knowledge of the elements, and among these should be American history. What if children cannot pronounce the names of all the cities in Siberia? Teach them to speak intelligently of Lexington, Bunker Hill and Yorktown. Hang the walls of the school-room with pictures of great Americans. Let incidents from their lives be used as illustrations of moral lessons. Explain the principles and form of our government. Dwell upon the extent ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 6, June, 1889 • Various

... on the one hundredth anniversary of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, on invitation of the United States Congress, October ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... men and they stood by him. We were saved at last because help came in time. Lord Cornwallis had laid the South in ashes, and camped at Yorktown, his army of veterans laden with spoils. He was only waiting for the transports from New York to take his victorious men North, join the army there and ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon

... appliances for assault or defence were quickly made, and all this practical schooling in the work of war went on, under the watchful cooperation of the very officers who afterward became conspicuous in the field, from Long Island to Yorktown. THE CAMP ABOUT BOSTON MADE OFFICERS, Its discipline dissipated many colonial jealousies; and there was developed that confidence in their commander, which, in after years, became the source of untold strength and solace to him in the darkest ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various

... 1918. To their glory be it recorded they never retreated. Chateau-Thierry, St. Mihiel, Siecheprey, Boureches Wood, Cantigny, Belleau Wood, the Argonne, Sedan and Stenay are names that will rank in American history with Yorktown, New Orleans and Gettysburg. The "land of dollars" became over night the "land of high ideals" to the civilized world. Lightless nights in cities, restriction of the use of gasoline on Sundays and daylight-saving legislation linked civilians to ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... overpowered. 2. Lightning and electricity were identified by Franklin. 3. A complete success or an entire failure was anticipated. 4. Good men and bad men are found in all communities. 5. Vapors rise from the ocean and fall upon the land. 6. The Revolutionary war began at Lexington and ended at Yorktown. 7. Alas! all hope has fled. 8. Ah! I am surprised at the news. 9. Oh! we shall certainly drown. 10. Pshaw! you are dreaming. 11. ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... announced that he should resign his office. His resignation would probably of itself have broken up the ministry, but, by a curious coincidence, on the next day Lord Rockingham died; and so the first British government begotten of Washington's victory at Yorktown ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... same relation to the Cisatlantic continent that the farmer's barn has to his house. Mild refutations of this modest doctrine having been attempted without success, posters in the necessary red-letter type were issued at Concord, Bunker Hill, Yorktown, etc., which might be translated somewhat thus:—"America has its own independent root in the world's centre, its own independent destiny in the Providential thought." This important fact, having ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... and Music watched, in the cradle of Beethoven, her budding Shakespeare. A fourth Teuton was studying the symphonies of the spheres; and within the first five years of the century, while the "crowning mercy" of Yorktown was maturing, a planet that had never before dawned on the eye of man took its place with the ancient six, and "swam into the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... Major William Gill, entered the service at the beginning of the war, and became connected with the staff of General Washington. He served in the capacity of aid to the Commander-in-chief through the war, and was with him at the surrender of Cornwallis, at Yorktown. From this point he returned to his family, in Mecklenburg, Va., who had not heard from him ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter

... good soldiers, said Captain Hollis ter; they stood us in hand a good turn at Yorktown; nor do I think, although I am an ignorant man about the great movements of the army, that his excellency would have been able to march against Cornwallis ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... launch, filled her with armed men and went ashore. Hunting out the authorities, he notified them that if any more stones were thrown at his launch he would make life a burden for every Chilian within reach of the Yorktown's guns. The launch was not ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... He did not take the war fever until St. Leger came up the valley, when he fought beside Herkimer in the ambush on Oriskany Creek. He joined the army of the North, and remained with it through the long three years that ended at Yorktown; then he married, and returned to his home among the ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster

... all troubles, the bold, true heart, the willing hand, the strong arm, and faith in the Lord of Hosts. Shiloh, Stone River, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness, and a hundred others, are the heroic names that will educate our grandchildren, as Bunker Hill, Yorktown, and Saratoga have educated ourselves. Who will say that a heritage of heroism and truth and loyalty like this, to leave to the land we love, is nothing? Who can count the price that will sum ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... At Yorktown she was ordered to work on a battery, which she did right faithfully. Among her comrades, Deborah's young and jaunty appearance won for her the sobriquet "blooming boy." She was a great favourite ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... relics of the flood is a small gold locket found in the ruins of the Hurlbut house yesterday. The locket contains a small coil of dark brown hair, and has engraved on the inside the following remarkable lines: "Lock of George Washington's hair, cut in Philadelphia while on his way to Yorktown, 1781." Mr. Benford, one of the proprietors of the house, states that the locket was the property of his sister, who was lost in the flood, and was presented to her by an old lady in Philadelphia, whose mother ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... ordered, That at the close of the ceremonies commemorative of the valor and success of our forefathers in their patriotic struggle for independence the British flag shall be saluted by the forces of the Army and Navy of the United States now at Yorktown. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... was transported with sixteen ox teams to the National bank at Philadelphia, which enabled our army to move to Yorktown to attack in conjunction with the French army under Rochambeau, the ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... with his chief is not known, but it was a much more serious quarrel; so that the young officer left his staff position in a fury and took no part in the war until the end, when he was present at the battle of Yorktown. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... unlawful combinations to obstruct the operations of the laws, and charged all courts, magistrates, and officers with their enforcement. There was no mistaking Hamilton's intention to enforce the law. Prosecutions in the Circuit Court, held at Yorktown in October, were ordered against the Pittsburgh offenders, but no proof could be had to sustain ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... Washington began a three weeks' siege against Yorktown, held by the British under Lord Cornwallis. Finding himself there completely surrounded by both land and water, ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott

... my father's face was so particularly becoming. The battle was fought in June 1780, and my parents were married in the autumn of the same year. My father did not go to sea again until after my birth, which took place the very day that Cornwallis capitulated at Yorktown. These combined events set the young sailor in motion, for he felt he had a family to provide for, and he wished to make one more mark on the enemy in return for the beauty-spot his wife so gloried in. He accordingly got a commission in a privateer, made two or three fortunate ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... others, who gave us their fortunes and hazarded their lives for America, the war was ended by the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. Victor Hugo said, "Napoleon was not defeated at Waterloo by the allied forces. It was God who conquered him." Who that remembers Trenton, Valley Forge, Saratoga and Yorktown, will not say God fought for our Washington? In 1777 a Quaker had occasion to pass through the woods near the headquarters of the army; hearing a voice, he approached the spot, and saw Washington in prayer. Returning home, he said to his wife: "All's well! All's ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple

... Steuben Winter at Valley Forge British evacuation of Philadelphia Battle of Monmouth Washington at White Plains Benedict Arnold Military operations at the South General Greene Lord Cornwallis His surrender at Yorktown Close of the war Washington at Mount Vernon Elected president Alexander Hamilton John Jay Washington as president Establishment of United States Bank Rivalries and dissensions between Hamilton and Jefferson French intrigues Jay treaty ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... across New Jersey to New York; and, finally, by one of the most brilliant marches in history, Washington transferred his whole army from the Hudson to the Potomac, and trapped Cornwallis and his army of seven thousand men at Yorktown. Cornwallis tried desperately to free himself, but to no avail, and on October 19, 1781, he surrendered ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... in landing in the United States six thousand Frenchmen under Rochambeau, who were followed, at a later date, by another division, and assisted in investing the English army under Cornwallis at Yorktown, (1781:) the independence of America was thus secured. France would perhaps have gained a triumph over her implacable rival more lasting in its effects, had she, in addition to the display made in the English Channel, sent ten ships and seven ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... Fourth of July, 1776, reached Williamsburgh; and, as he was beginning to walk, he was startled by the roar of cannon when the victory of Saratoga was celebrated with every demonstration of joy throughout the land. As a boy of seven he heard the booming of the distant artillery at Yorktown; and he might have seen the faces of the old and the young brightening with hope, when the Articles of Confederation, which preceded the present Federal Constitution, having been ratified at last by all the States, became ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... they marched from salt water across Virginia to the mountains—and then they marched back to salt water again. Cornwallis had called Lafayette "the boy" and had declared that "the boy should not escape him." Finally Cornwallis fortified Yorktown, and Lafayette settled down at Williamsburg. And there they still ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing

... approaches, and planting three large guns "to beate of the Assailants". Another small detachment, under Colonel Hansford, was posted "at the Howse where Coll: Reade did once live", the site of famous old Yorktown.[691] ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... Its pages teem with word-painting of hair-breadth escapes, of marches, of countermarches, bivouacs and battles without number. Stirring memories of Brandy Station, Chantilly, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Yorktown, Falmouth and Gettysburg, are roused by the masterly raconteur, until in October, 1864, just beyond New Baltimore, the gallant captain was captured, and for a year languished in 'durance vile.' The interest ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... transportation, ammunition, and Woodbury's brigade, under your orders, is not, and will not be, interfered with. You now have over one hundred thousand troops with you, independent of General Wool's command. I think you better break the enemy's line from Yorktown to Warwick River at once. This will probably use time as advantageously as ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... of the Maypole was not much shrunken when the guests of the house of Jaquelin began to arrive. First to come, and from farthest away, was Mr. Richard Ambler, of Yorktown, who had ridden from that place to Williamsburgh the afternoon before, and had that morning used the planter's pace to Jamestown,—his industry being due to the fact that he was courting the May Queen's elder sister. Following him came five Lees in a chariot, ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... withdrew his forces from Manassas and the shore of the Potomac and concentrated them on the Peninsula. The 47th regiment marched from its winter quarters to Richmond, and was thence transported down the James to a wharf not far from Yorktown. During our brief stay in that vicinity, the companies were authorized to elect their officers; and I, who had been acting as Orderly Sergeant, was chosen ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway

... May 14, 1862. He was then transferred, with his team, to a train that was ordered to join General McClellan at Fort Monroe. He then followed the fortunes of the Army of the Potomac up the Peninsula; was at the siege of Yorktown, the battle of Williamsburg, and in the swamps of the Chickahominy. He was also in the seven days' battles, and brought up at Harrison's Landing with the Army of the Potomac. He then drove his team back to Fort Monroe, where they were shipped, with the animals of the ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley

... Page was the eldest son— Edward C. Fish was his brother-in-law; They both enlisted in the Mechanic, And served their time in the war. Fernand O. Page was the second son; He served in the Third Infantry; He was wounded and lost both his feet On duty at Yorktown siege." ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... saw my poor Jack's girl face bloody. This was the last I remember clearly, for the lust of battle was on me, and I can recall no more of what chanced for a little, than I could in later years of the wild melley on the main street of Germantown, or of the struggle in the redoubt at Yorktown. ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... the George Washington Memorial Parkway be extended from Mount Vernon to Yorktown as the beginning of a system of scenic roads and parkways in and around ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior

... were very low at times, despite the victory at Saratoga. England was not well served in this American war. She had no Washington to direct her campaign. Gage, Burgoyne, and Cornwallis were not equal to the responsibilities thrown upon them. Cornwallis's defeat at Yorktown on the 19th October, 1781, was the death-blow to the hopes of England in North America. This disaster led to the resignation of Lord North, whose heart was never in the war, and to the acknowledgment by England, a few months later, of the independence ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... tansy figures is what your sister wants me to tell you about. My mother, your grandmother, was a widow. I never saw my own father, for I was born while he was away fighting in the battles of the Revolution and he never returned; he was killed at Yorktown. When I was about ten years old my mother had an offer of marriage from a farmer in Medway who had lost his wife; his children had grown up, married and settled excepting one son twenty years old. It was a matter of convenience on both sides; my mother needed a home and he needed a ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee

... of Portsmouth was brief, for upon the engineers reporting that the site was not one which could be fortified, the British general put his troops on board of such shipping as he could gather and transferred them bodily to Yorktown. Here he set the army, and the three thousand negroes who had followed them, leisurely to laying out lines of earthworks, that he might hold the post with the reduced number which would be left him after he detached the reinforcements ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... N., major general United States Volunteers, at Yorktown; ordered to observe A. P. Hill at Harper's Ferry; should have come on field of Antietam not later than Hill; but did not appear; reports to General Thomas for duty, assigned to 4th army corps; owing to dissatisfaction in that corps assigned to 23d army corps; outranks General Cox and displaces ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... of fresh water which were named by him Kent's Burn* (* Discovered by Captain Kent.) and M'Millan's Burn.* (* Called after Mr. M'Millan, Surgeon of the Buffalo.) He decided to move the people to this spot without delay,—giving the place the name of Yorktown.* (* Yorktown settlement soon gave place to Georgetown, and in 1806 the settlers were moved to the spot where Launceston now stands.) The main river he called the Tamar, two other streams the North ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... no doubt well skilled in the routine of his profession, but broke down when burdened with the responsibility of conducting the movement of troops in the field. Wagner was a recent graduate of the Military Academy, a genial, modest, intelligent young man of great promise. He fell at the siege of Yorktown in the next year. Whittlesey was a veteran whose varied experience in and out of the army had all been turned to good account. He was already growing old, but was indefatigable, pushing about in a rather prim, precise way, advising wisely, criticising dryly but in a kindly spirit, and helping ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... Ordination, Confirmation, and the government of the Church must of need be secured. Nor can we greatly wonder if what no entreaties had been able to obtain while the colonies were a part of the British Empire, seemed now to many an almost hopeless undertaking. The surrender at Yorktown in 1781 was to many American churchmen the death-blow to their hopes for an American Episcopate. There were men enough to see the difficulties and discouragements, to talk and write and speculate about them; but where should those ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut

... lion's glance; Say, when they fainted in the forced retreat, They tracked the snow-drifts with their bleeding feet, Yet still their banners, tossing in the blast, Bore Ever Ready, faithful to the last, Through storm and battle, till they waved again On Yorktown's hills ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... 'could not tell a lie," The flag of freedom planted, He shelled "Corn"—wallis to the "cob" On Yorktown's field undaunted. Since then, our tea is duty free No Briton dare attach it; While the new woman in the case, Now ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... the Deerfield victims through the forest to Canada; they too resist the encroachments of the Mother Country upon their rights as English citizens; they suffer through the long winter at Valley Forge and join with Washington in his midnight vigils; they rejoice at Yorktown; they dream with Jefferson and plead with Webster; their hearts are fired with the news of Sumter; they clinch their teeth at Bull Run; they gather hope at Donelson, but they shudder at Shiloh; they struggle through ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... reads. The soul of to-day, catching from the past the voices of prophets and leaders, thrills with a sense of kinship. The story of American independence means most when the reader has fought his own Bunker Hill, and wintered at Valley Forge, and triumphed at Yorktown. The death of Socrates has small significance unless something in the reader's heart answers to his affirmation that "nothing evil can happen to a good man, in living or dying." The life of Jesus and the story of Christianity are ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... (1775-1781). This war, by which the United States definitely separated themselves from the British connexion, began with the affair of Lexington in Massachusetts, on the 19th of April 1773, and was virtually ended by the capitulation of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, on the l0th of October 1781. In this article the progress of the war itself is alone considered, its political side being treated under UNITED STATES: History. From a military standpoint as well as politically it was a conspicuous ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... from a speck on the world's map till all nations dip their flag at our passing merchantmen, and our 'national airs' have been heard on the steeps of the Himalayas; was born while the Revolutionary cannon were coming home from Yorktown, and lived to hear the tramp of troops returning from the war of the great Rebellion; lived to speak the names of eighty children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Nearly all his contemporaries gone! Aged ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg

... engaged. In repeated instances the enemy's batteries have been effectually kept silent by the aid of this weapon, till counter-works could be established, which could by no possibility have been constructed but for such assistance. During the siege of Yorktown, especially, the fact is historical that the Confederates acquired such a dread of these weapons that they forced their negroes to the work of serving the guns, which they did not dare attempt themselves, and our men were reluctantly compelled, in self-defence, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... government, and for self-government. It was man realizing himself. It was sovereignty from within which responded to the alarm of Paul Revere on that April night, and which went marching, gun in hand, against sovereignty from without, wherever it was found on earth. It only paused at Concord, or Yorktown, then marched on to Paris, to London, to Moscow, to Pekin. Against it the powers of privilege and the forces of despotism could not prevail. Superstition and sham cannot stand before intelligence and reality. The light that first broke over the thirteen Colonies ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge

... directions of Sir Henry Clinton he evacuates Portsmouth and concentrates his forces at Yorktown, August ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... she was the granddaughter of George Walton, one of the Signers from Georgia, and the daughter of George Walton, the Territorial Governor of Florida. In 1836 she married Dr. Henry S. Le Vert, son of the fleet-surgeon of the Count de Rochambeau at Yorktown, Va. In 1858 her "Souvenirs of Travel" appeared, and later she wrote "Souvenirs of Distinguished People" and "Souvenirs of the War," but, for personal reasons, neither of ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... by the Spaniards at Santiago largely exceeded the two English armies and their equipments at Saratoga and Yorktown. ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... laden with ham and eggs and other luxuries, which had been smuggled across the Rappahannock. This, of course, was thoroughly confiscated, appropriated, and destroyed. A consultation of officers was here instituted, and it was decided to try to reach Gloucester Point, opposite Yorktown, which we knew was in ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... Libertas Americana medal, which recalls, if we except the evacuation of Boston, the two most memorable events of the War of Independence, namely, the capitulation of General Burgoyne, at Saratoga, in October, 1777, and that of General Lord Cornwallis, at Yorktown, in October, 1781, Dupre has represented the new-born Liberty, sprung from the prairies without ancestry and without rulers, as a youthful virgin, with disheveled hair and dauntless aspect, bearing across her shoulder a pike, surmounted by the Phrygian cap. This great artist, in consequence of his ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... administration made one Benjamin Franklin Postmaster for Philadelphia. He was on the point of sailing with Admiral Vernon on the expedition against Cartagena in 1740, when he was suddenly stricken and died. He was buried at Temple Farm by Yorktown. On the expedition to Cartagena went one Lawrence Washington, who named his country seat after the Admiral and whose brother George many years later was to receive the surrender of Cornwallis and ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... making of the Commonwealth. He was a native of Virginia, born and reared in the vicinity of Harper's Ferry. He served a two-years' enlistment in the Revolutionary War under Washington, and afterwards returned to his regiment during the siege of Yorktown. His "Yorktown Notes" in his diary give some interesting glimpses of his participation in that campaign.[1] His Scotch ancestors had served in a similar cause under Cromwell, whose wedding gift to one of their number is still cherished ...
— The Jefferson-Lemen Compact • Willard C. MacNaul

... Quartermaster's department in discharging transports, were precisely what was needed for the disembarkation of General Franklin's division, constituted a portion of the numerous bridges that were built over Wormley Creek during the siege of Yorktown, and were of the highest use in the Chickahominy; while over the Lower Chickahominy, some seventy-five thousand men, some three hundred pieces of artillery, and the enormous baggage-trains of the army, passed over a bridge of the extraordinary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... nearing the city he received news of Lord Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown, on October 19, 1781. He pushed on his lines, and arriving in Wilmington he found that Major Craig had taken ship and was flying from the land he had ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... progress of the war. In 1781 General Greene drove the British from the Southern States. In October of the same year General Washington compelled Lord Cornwallis to surrender his army, at Yorktown, in Virginia. This was the last great event of the Revolutionary contest. King George and his ministers perceived that all the might of England could not compel America to renew her allegiance to the crown. After a great deal of discussion, ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... heard of him, he was at the Rip Raps, bemoaning his isolation, and the butt of our soldiers there, who charged him with being a "Secesh," and confounded him by gravely asserting that they were such themselves and had seen him with the "Secesh" at Yorktown. This was the single goat among ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... forgotten some things about American history, especially about spirit and equipment. Where was the equipment at Valley Forge? What about the troops under Washington that took the breastworks at Yorktown without a single round of powder—just bayonets? What about the war of 1812, when we had no army and the English thought we had no navy? You ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke

... the fourth son, father of General Wm. O. Butler, was born at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1760. He entered the army as a lieutenant at the age of eighteen; was with Washington at Valley Forge; was in the battle of Monmouth, and at the taking of Yorktown—being through the whole series of struggles in the Middle States, with the troops under the commander-in-chief, except for a short period when he was attached to a light corps commanded by La Fayette, who presented him a sword. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... knowledge of the officers and their merits was more general than that of almost any other in service. My operations were upon the extended scale, from the remotest parts of Canada, wherever the American standard had waved, to the splendid theatre of Yorktown, when and where I was adjutant-general to the chosen ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... got from an old bent neighbor of ninety years. It brought a cloud to his brow. All day and into the night the thought persisted and its shadow chilled the hours of his departure. James Nelson was his name, of the ancient family of the Nelsons of Yorktown. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... pioneer first mentioned,—Isaac, Jacob, Thomas, and John. Jacob and John remained in Virginia; the former was a soldier in the War of the Revolution, and took part as lieutenant in a Virginia regiment at the siege of Yorktown. Isaac went to a place on the Holston River in Tennessee; Thomas followed his brother to Kentucky, lived and died there, and his children then emigrated to Tennessee [Footnote: It is an interesting coincidence for the knowledge of which we are indebted ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... the old Fontenoy library and the Fontenoy stables. He was a gentleman of the old school, slight, withered, high-nosed and hawk-eyed, dressed with precision and carrying an empty sleeve. The arm he had lost at Yorktown; a temper too hot to hold he daily lost, but he had the art to keep his friends. There were duels to his account, as well as a reputation for great courage and coolness during the late war. Under the name of Horatius he contributed to The Virginia Federalist diatribes of ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... Saratoga has been mentioned in a previous letter; and in October, 1781, Lord Cornwallis, whose army was reduced to seven thousand men, was induced to surrender to Washington, who, with eighteen thousand, had blockaded him at a village called Yorktown; and it was the news of this disaster which at last compelled the King to consent to relinquish ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... During the siege of Yorktown, in America, we had, during one night, erected a battery, with intent to blow up a place which, according to the report of our spies, was your magazine of ammunition, etc. We had not time to finish it before daylight; but one loaded twenty-four pounder was mounted, and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... green card became a yellow card when the System/370 was introduced, and later a yellow booklet. An anecdote from IBM refers to a scene that took place in a programmers' terminal room at Yorktown in 1978. A {luser} overheard one of the programmers ask another "Do you have a green card?" The other grunted and passed the first a thick yellow booklet. At this point the luser turned a delicate shade of olive and rapidly left the room, ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... its echoes shall send through the past, In the trenches of Yorktown to waken the slain; While the sod of King's Mountain shall heave at the blast, And give up its heroes ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim that the ports of Richmond, Tappahannock, Cherrystone, Yorktown, and Petersburg, in Virginia; of Camden (Elizabeth City), Edenton, Plymouth, Washington, Newbern, Ocracoke, and Wilmington, in North Carolina; of Charleston, Georgetown, and Beaufort, in South Carolina; of Savannah, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... and violated by both parties, it was about to be formally broken. Neither of the plenipotentiaries who signed the treaty was skilled in diplomacy. Joseph Bonaparte acted for his brother; England was represented by Lord Cornwallis, who twenty years before had surrendered the British army at Yorktown. The wits of London described him afterwards as a general who could neither conduct a ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... patriot cause seemed so much in danger. But the dark days passed, and once more the Americans began to win instead of lose battles. South Carolina was re-conquered, and Cornwallis, who was commander-in-chief of the British army in the south, retired into Virginia, and occupied Yorktown. ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... caught. Cornwallis, the second in command of the British forces, pursued Lafayette up and down Virginia. Clinton, the British Commander-in-Chief, began to feel nervous for the safety of New York and wished to detach some of his forces thither. Cornwallis led his army into Yorktown and proceeded to fortify it, so that it might resist a siege. Now at last Washington felt that he had the enemy's army within his grasp. Sixteen thousand American and French troops were brought down from the North to furnish the fighting ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... charity in religion? Was the work of Washington and Jefferson and Hamilton to go down in ruin and nothingness? While the old world, with her tyrannies, scoffed at the failure of the Republic, men thought of Bunker Hill and Valley Forge and Yorktown. They thought of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They recalled the tribute of one of the greatest of English statesmen, who characterized the American Constitution as "the greatest political instrument ever struck off by the ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... part of October, 1781, Lord Cornwallis surrendered his whole army, of over seven thousand men, at Yorktown. The French fleet cut off his escape by sea. Seven thousand French soldiers, united with five thousand American troops, prevented any retreat by land. The Americans had thus captured two British armies. It was in vain for England to think of sending ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... been an ensign with Washington in the General Braddock campaign of the fatal 1755; had been colonel under General Washington in the Buff-and-Blue Continental Army, and was General Washington's intimate friend: but Lord Cornwallis, the British general, had surrendered at Yorktown last fall, the War of the Revolution appeared to be almost over, and he had ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... society that ever had the honor of enrolling the name of Washington among its members was the Friendly Knights of St. Patrick. It is an incident worthy of remark that at Yorktown it was a Celt, General O'Hara, who gave to America the symbol of England's final defeat. When the war of the Revolution was ended the Celt laid aside the sword to engage in the arts of peace and build up the industries ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various

... present, driven forth like snakes. The best American blood is in our veins. We're Plymouth Rock stock, the best New England graft; the fathers of nine tenths of us was at Bunker Hill or Valley Forge or Yorktown, but what of ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... proclaiming that if it doesn't conduct itself more to John Bull's liking, "it will soon feel the iron hand beneath the velvet glove." Turn loose your "iron hand," you old he-bawd—and you'll soon stick it further under your own coat-tails than you did at Yorktown. ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... their common deliverance. Excellent, as far as it goes; but what are we to do with the large foreign fraction of our population imported within the last forty years, a great proportion of whom never so much as heard even of the war of 1812? Shall we talk of Bennington and Yorktown to the Germans, whose grandfathers, if they were concerned at all in those memorable transactions, were concerned on the wrong side? Shall we talk of the constancy of Puritan Pilgrims to the Romanist Irishman, who knows more of Brian Boroo ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... of mind when the surrender at Yorktown and the events incident to the reception of the news in England at last brought peace into really serious consideration. The States had already been forward to place themselves in a position for negotiating ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... have, you would not be so eager for it. God forbid it should deluge this frontier with blood; but if it do, old as I am, I will shoulder the old Brown Bess there above the fireplace that your grandfather bore at Brandywine and Yorktown." ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... as his native country seemed to need him. He speedily raised a company of cavalry in Charleston, and cast his lot with the patriots whom he found in arms against the mother-country. We have no record of his deeds, but we know that he distinguished himself at Eutaw Springs and at Yorktown, where he was attached to ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... at Guilford Courthouse, the ever-present forest diminished the effectiveness of artillery, but nevertheless the arm was often put to good use. The skill of the American gunners at Yorktown contributed no little toward the speedy advance of the siege trenches. Yorktown battlefield today has many examples of Revolutionary War cannon, including some fine ship guns recovered from British vessels sunk during the siege ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy

... reached this goal he intended, as soon as he decently could, to sell out and retire. Late in 1782 we find him again in command at Isle aux Noix and not sure but that he may at any time be surprised by the Americans. It seems odd that, though Cornwallis had already surrendered at Yorktown, and the war was really over, Nairne was still hoping for final victory for Great Britain; on February 8th, 1783, he writes: "It is to be hoped that affairs will at last take a favourable turn to Great Britain; her cause is really a just one." In fact preliminary articles of the most ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... may be a newspaper, since these are swarming every where at the present time, and read that a person has just deceased, who was at Yorktown, in Virginia, during the whole siege, in the American revolution. I am supposing here that you have already learned where Yorktown is; for geography, to some extent at least, should precede history; but if not, I would let it pass for the moment, since we cannot do every thing at once, and proceed to inquire about the siege, and revolution. If you have any books whatever, on history, ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... people have forgotten them. Listen: 'From sire to son has descended the love of the Union in our hearts, as in our history are mingled the names of Concord and Camden, of Yorktown and Saratoga, of New Orleans and Bunker Hill. Together they form a monument to the common glory of our common country. Where is the Southern man who would wish that monument less by one Northern name that constitutes the mass? Who, standing on the ground made ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... trite by time, Or Yorktown fail to fire, Man's breast, with hatred most sublime, To wrong, ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley

... an earlier day, and those great achievements were actually criticized. Who were Putnam and Stark that South Carolinians should worship them, when they had a Marion and a Sumter of their own? Vermont went wild, the other day, over Bennington as she did not over the centenary of the surrender at Yorktown. Take away this local patriotism and you take out all the color that is left in American life. That the local patriotism may not only consist with a wider patriotism, but may serve as a most important element ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve

... front door, and charge a nickel to go in. Which will history say is the greater man, Sam Adams or Robert F. Lee? If these were Washington's armies going by, you would probably feel a little excited, though you have had a hundred and twenty years to get used to Yorktown and the Philadelphia Congress. Well, Washington is no more to the nation than Lee is ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... in 1862, not upon Manassas, but on Yorktown, filled the less enthusiastic of his henchmen with consternation. To the general eye he seemed to have pitched on the very point where the enemy wanted to meet with all the gain in their favor. This direct route to Richmond they had tried to make impregnable. The President, whom McClellan ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... in the Wolcott home: Pamela had gone forth from the mansion a bride, after Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown, and Josiah Huntington had worn a major's uniform on his wedding-day. Betty had scarcely recovered from that break in the home circle when Sally Tracy, with many blushes and much laughter, confessed that she, too, was about to follow Pamela's example, and that a certain Mr. James ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln

... Hill,—an alliance that much distressed him. The sad fortune of his second daughter, Mary, was another source of grief. She had married Benjamin Lincoln, eldest son of General Lincoln, who received the sword of General Cornwallis at the surrender of Yorktown,—a young lawyer of considerable promise; but ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various

... army held New York. Another British army under Cornwallis was at Yorktown in Virginia. General Washington had marched to Yorktown. He was trying to capture the army of General Cornwallis. He was afraid that ships and soldiers would be sent from New York to help Cornwallis. But ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston

... of Yorktown, in 1781, was conducted by few against few, as compared with modern armies, it is well to note the historical fact that, at the second siege, in 1861, the same ravine was used by General Poe (United States Engineers) to connect "parallels," and thereby ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... his face and cuts away a lock. The weight of the savage fire is now falling on the artillery in the center. The gunners sink beneath their guns. The herculean lieutenant-colonel, William Darke, who has fought at Yorktown, is ordered to charge on the right front. The troops rush forward with levelled bayonets, the savages are routed from their coverts, are visible a moment, and then disappear. As the levies advance the savages close in behind. Darke is surrounded on all sides—his three ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... so familiar that I need not attempt to recount them. They belong to the history of two famous wars—the war of the Revolution and the war of the Rebellion—and are part of the story of almost a hundred years of civil strife. They began with Bunker Hill and Yorktown, with the Declaration of Independence and the adoption of the Federal Constitution. They end with Fort Sumter and the fall of Richmond, with the Emancipation Proclamation and the Anti-Slavery and Equal Rights Amendments to the Constitution of the Nation. These long ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard

... directed to rally on Stoneman, who was thus left with five hundred men of Buford's reserve, or else to push through to Gloucester Point, or Yorktown, as circumstances should dictate. ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge



Words linked to "Yorktown" :   besieging, Old Dominion State, War of American Independence, village, Virginia, hamlet, siege, military blockade, Old Dominion, VA, American Revolutionary War, American Revolution, American War of Independence, beleaguering



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