And Then There Were Thirteen with Dr. Henry Lumpkin was an instructional series debuted by SCETV in the mid-1970s. The 20-episode series featured lectures by Dr. Henry Lumpkin of the University of South Carolina Department of History filmed on actual battle sites and campaign areas of the American Revolution in South Carolina.
In this ETV Classic Yorktown, Part Two, the war reaches its climactic phase in Yorktown, Virginia. Cornwallis is hopelessly trapped with a remnant of his army about to face a superior allied force of French and Americans with the French armies vastly outnumbering the numbers of Americans, and Professor Lumpkin delivers all of the action!
Across the river at Gloucester, Banastre Tarleton commanded the British forces with cavalry and mounted infantry. Gloucester would be the escape route to the north if escape were necessary or became possible. The siege began on September 29th, when the Americans moved into camp on the British left and the French on the British right. To the astonishment of both armies, an early morning reconnaissance, discovered that Cornwallis had evacuated his outer line of defenses, except for the two redoubts on his left. Cornwallis believed that Sir Henry Clinton would be sending a powerful relief force from New York, but that was not to happen. Meanwhile, in Gloucester, duc de Lauzun was given the task of containing Banastre Tarleton and it was there that the first skirmish took place. To learn more about the participants in battle, see Side Notes below.
At one point, part of Banastre Tarleton’s and John Simcoe’s men, were ordered to turn about and face action while in the woods. Tarleton meanwhile had ridden back with Cameron’s party, to reconnoiter the approaching French. At this point, Brigadier General Marquis de Choisy moved down the road with supporting cavalry and infantry while Tarleton and his dragoons were skirmishing. It was here that Tarleton was unhorsed and suffered a severe injury to his hand, and his troops charged in the woods to save their leader's life. Tarleton found another horse in the melee and remounted and ordered a retreat from the advancing enemy, marking his last military engagement in the Revolutionary War.
Professor Lumpkin offers a master class in European warfare as enacted by the participants of the battle at Yorktown. The French completed their battery on the afternoon of the 6th, and by the morning of the 9th, the Americans began moving the artillery into the batteries, and by noon of the same day, the mortars of the allied extreme right were in readiness. At 3:00pm on October 9th, firing commenced upon the British position. Marquis de Choisy noticed six British flat boats trying to get across the water and behind the French position and after firing his field guns, the British were forced back to Gloucester Point, and at this point, British morale was beginning to falter. Cornwallis felt that he could hold out until Clinton's reinforcements arrive. By the October 11th, the live guns continued their increasingly aggressive cannonade, while the British fire noticeably shrank. Cornwallis's line had sustained serious damage, as well as the parapets.
Follow along to learn about Marquis de Choisy firing on the frigates Guadalupe and Charon, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton’s daring night raid, and the violent storm that drove British boats down the river as the allied batteries opened with more than 100 guns in position for a ceaseless bombardment.
Cornwallis determined that he must capitulate and on the morning of the 17th, a British drummer mounted a parapet and beat the parley. The American soldiers advanced, the blind folded British commander was led through the American lines and brought to George Washington. The American general broke the seal of the letter, the moment he had waited and had fought for so long finally had come. It was a message from Cornwallis asking for cessation of hostilities for twenty-four hours while terms of surrender for Yorktown and Gloucester could be discussed and settled. The terms were agreed and the Articles of Capitulation were signed at the Moore House.
Side Notes
- Henry Lumpkin, Ph.D. Henry Lumpkin was a military historian with the United States European Command and Naval Academy. He was Professor Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina.
- Charles Cornwallis (1738-1805) was sympathetic to American views during pre-war political disputes in Parliament but became one of the most prominent British generals during the War for Independence. He is known for his surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, in October 1781 after allowing his army to become trapped there. His surrender was catastrophic for British hopes to retain the colonies and brought down the ministry of Lord North.
- General George Washington and his Continental Army had a decision to make in the spring of 1781. They could strike a decisive blow to the British in New York City or aim for the south, in Yorktown, Virginia, where Gen. Charles Lord Cornwallis’s troops were garrisoned. Washington and his French ally, Lt. Gen. Comte de Rochambeau, bet on the south, where they were assured critical naval support from a French fleet commanded by Adm. Comte de Grasse. The Allied armies marched hundreds of miles from their headquarters north of New York City to Yorktown, making theirs the largest troop movement of the American Revolution. They surprised the British in a siege that turned the tide toward an American victory in the War for Independence.
- François-Joseph-Paul, comte de Grasse (1722 - 1788) was a French naval commander who engaged British forces during the American Revolution (1775–83).
- Marquis de Lafayette Lafayette studied the ideals of the American Revolution and planned to enlist in the Continental Army. Silas Deane was a representative of the Continental Congress sent to France to recruit officers. Even though Lafayette was only nineteen and had no experience in war, Deane offered him a commission. King Louis XVI ordered Lafayette to remain in France, but the defiant young nobleman ignored him and set sail for America in early 1777. When he finally arrived in Philadelphia, Congressmen James Lovell of Massachusetts refused to receive him, saying that Americans were tired of ambitious Frenchmen seeking glory. But upon realizing how wealthy and well-connected Lafayette actually was, and recognizing his sincere support for the American cause, Lovell recommended Lafayette's appointment as a Major-General.
- Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (1725 -1807) was a French general who supported the American Revolution by commanding French forces that helped defeat the British in the Siege of Yorktown, Virginia (1781).
- HMS Charon (1778) was a 44-gun fifth rate in service with the Royal Navy. Constructed in 1778, the ship took part in several conflicts in the Americas before being destroyed during the 1781 Siege of Yorktown. Her wreck lies in the York River.
- A Piece of Shipwreck From the 1700s pulled from the York River. The HMS Charon was a warship in the British Royal Navy supporting General Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown. Steen tells me, "Cornwallis is here with his troops and he knows the French are coming. So he starts sinking ships to form a barricade. The remaining ships are put on patrol. [In] this case, the Charon and the Guadalupe are in charge of watching the upper river to keep the militia from coming downstream."
- The Moore House and Articles of Capitulation - In 1781, when General Cornwallis moved his British army into Yorktown, many residents left their homes and fled the area. The Moore family may also have abandoned their home, temporarily moving to Richmond during the Yorktown Siege. What they certainly could not have known, was that their home would become a site of national significance on October 18, 1781, when it was selected to be the backdrop for one of the final scenes of the American Revolution.
- Armand Louis de Gontaut duc de Lauzun, later duc de Biron, and usually referred to by historians of the French Revolution simply as Biron (1747 – 1793), was a French soldier and politician, known for the part he played in the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars. In 1773, he was Grand second warden of Grand Orient de France. Following his appointment to a command against the British in 1779, commanding the troops that captured Fort St Louis, in Senegal, from the British, Lauzun raised an army of volunteer hussars and infantry, subsequently known as Lauzun's Legion, for service in North America. He arrived with 600 of his men in Rhode Island; the remainder were in France, prevented from leaving. Despite having only a portion of his force, he engaged in several active skirmishes, including one near Gloucester, Virginia on 4 October 1781.
- Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Dundas (1750 - 1794) By December of 1777, Dundas was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the 80th Regiment of Foot. Serving under Generals Henry Clinton and Charles Cornwallis in the Revolutionary War from 1779 to 1781, Dundas stood as the head of a brigade composed of the 76th and 80th Regiments of Foot. He was commissioned by Cornwallis to arrange battle strategy at Yorktown, Virginia but the fateful battle of October 17th, 1781 led to American victory in the revolution.
- Sir Alan Cameron of Erracht
- Marquis de Choisy (1723–1800) was a French general who served in Poland in the 1770s, and then in North America during the American Revolutionary War. De Choissey was at the siege of Yorktown in command of Lauzun's Legion and General George Weedon's Virginia militia, and at Gloucester, Virginia, under the command of Rochambeau, opposite Banastre Tarleton. Awarded the Libertas Americana medal for his service, he returned to France in 1783 and retired from active duty in 1793.
- Sir Henry Clinton - His military insights were often ignored by his superior officers, but he proposed and led the double envelopment plan that routed the Continentals on Long Island in 1776 as General Howe’s second in command. Clinton became Commander in Chief of the British Army in America in upon William Howe’s recall in 1778 and led his forces in the battles of Monmouth and Charleston. Though an able tactician, he had many critics. His failure to provide timely aid during the doomed Yorktown campaign and led to his resignation in 1781.
- Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) During the Siege of Yorktown, men of Lafayette's Division were chosen to assault Redoubt 10. The command of the attack was originally given to Gimat, another battalion commander in the division. Hamilton, claiming seniority and his status as officer of the day, demanded that he be allowed to lead the attack. George Washington eventually allowed Hamilton to lead the attack. Hamilton was breveted a colonel on September 30, 1782. He was discharged from the army less than three months later.
- Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon (1760 – 1825), better known as Henri de Saint-Simon , was a French political, economic and socialist theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on politics, economics, sociology and the philosophy of science. He was a younger relative of the famous memoirist the Duc de Saint-Simon. During the American Revolution, Saint-Simon joined the Americans, believing that their revolution signaled the beginning of a new era. He fought alongside the Marquis de Lafayette between 1779 and 1783, and took part in the siege of Yorktown under the command of General George Washington. Saint-Simon was captured and imprisoned by British forces during the end of his service, and upon his release, returned to France to study engineering and hydraulics at the Ecole de Mézières.
- Parleying with the enemy. The secret history of drums. One of the more interesting functions of the drummer was to 'parley' with the other side - he would be sent as a go-between across enemy lines - to negotiate terms, arrange and pay ransoms, offer or accept terms of surrender, to deliver and bring back any hostages or prisoners who were to be exchanged. Equipped with a small drum for lightness, and with written confirmation of his message attached to his hat, the drummer would approach the enemy camp and stop a musket shot's distance from the gates. The sound of the 'parley' beaten on his drum was a signal of readiness to trade terms, and a party would come out to lead him, blind fold, inside the camp to the General's pavilion.
- General Henry Knox augmented the army’s artillery arsenal to unrivaled heights, helping to secure pivotal victories at the Battles of Trenton and Princeton in winter 1776. Far surpassing that of the British, the Continental army’s artillery secured America’s last and arguably most decisive victory at Yorktown in 1781. Celebrating Knox’s role in America’s triumph, Washington reported to Congress that the young general’s “genius supplied the deficit of means,” after which he promoted Knox to the rank of major general and finally commander.
