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fendable. Cornwallis settled on Yorktown with its high bluff and good port. Yorktown, September-October, 1781 The news that Admiral de Grasse and the French fleet had cleared France presented Washington with an opportunity he had to exploit. Washington and Rochambeau took counsel and concluded an assault on Clinton in New York was not a certain success. Cornwallis was a better bet. They decided to leave Clinton in New York believing he was about to be attacked by a large army and move quickly southward to Virginia. Coordinating their arrival with that of de Grasse in the Chesapeake, they would snare Cornwallis at Yorktown. For once in the war a grand American plan went off without a hitch. Washington and Rochambeau left New York on August 21, getting away without detection by Clinton. Simultaneously Lafayette moved his troops south of Cornwallis to block an escape into the Carolinas. On August 30 de Grasse with his great fleet of 24 major ships, 1,700 guns, 19,000 seamen, and 3,000 troops reached the Capes. He had disembarked his troops before a smaller British fleet arrived to challenge him. On September 5 the French fleet drove the English back to New York. Cornwallis was trapped. Carefully Washington, Rochambeau, and de Grasse plotted the siege of Yorktown. When the formal siege began on September 28, Washington had an army of nearly 16,000 men including 7,800 fresh, disciplined, and well-equipped French troops. The 8,800 Americans included 3,000 Virginia militia commanded by Governor Nelson and veteran Generals Weedon, Robert Lawson, and Edward Stevens. The bulk of Washington's Continentals were from Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. Cornwallis had about 7,000 men, many of whom had been in the field since February, 1780. At the beginning Cornwallis abandoned his weaker outer defenses, which Washington immediately turned into artillery battery positions. Once the siege began in earnest on October 6, the allied artillery pounded the British into submission. Parallel trenches were dug close to the British lines. On the night of October 14 a combined attack by Americans under Colonel Alexander Hamilton and the French took the two redoubts which were the keys to the sagging British defenses. On the 16th Cornwallis attempted to escape across the York River to Gloucester Point and then north to New York and Clinton. A sudden storm scattered his boats and barges. With that Cornwallis recognized the utter h
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