Lt. General Earl Cornwallis, the British general officer commanding in the south, occupied Yorktown and Gloucester on August 1 and 2, 1781, the evacuation of Portsmouth was completed on the 18th, and four days later he was joined by the remaining troops from there. Meanwhile momentous events were taking place elsewhere. On August 14, while […]
Historians have long appreciated that the colonies could not have won the American Revolutionary War against the most powerful nation in the world without significant foreign aid. What is not coherently presented in the historical record or documented in any meaningful depth is the quantification of that aide by France and her allies, primarily Spain. […]
Richard Peters’ letter of October 19, 1781, to Gen. George Washington mentioned two missions to obtain copies of certain British naval signals and convey them to French Adm. Francois Joseph Paul, Comte de Grasse. These signals have been discussed in numerous books and articles on Revolutionary War clandestine activities. During the five-plus years he was […]
History occasionally provides a pleasant surprise by revealing the record of an ordinary person who, thrust into a unique role, performed extraordinary services for his country. In researching the movement of American ordinance from the Hudson River and Philadelphia to Yorktown in 1781, this author discovered that the commodore appointed to lead the ordnance fleet, […]
When de Grasse’s fleet left Yorktown for the Caribbean on November 4, 1781, he was already planning how to pursue the second objective of the July 17, 1781, de Grasse/Saavedra Conventions. The objectives that he had agreed to with the Secretary of State and General Bureau for the Spanish Indies, Don Francisco Saavedra, were “to […]
