ould not do that he stood as near his troops as he could,
utterly regardless of the bullets whistling in the air about him. Who
can wonder at his intense excitement at that moment? Others saw a
brilliant storming of two outworks, but to Washington the whole
Revolution, and all the labor and thought and conflict of six years
were culminating in the smoke and din on those redoubts, while out of
the dust and heat of the sharp quick fight success was coming. He
had waited long, and worked hard, and his whole soul went out as he
watched the troops cross the abattis and scale the works. He could
have no thought of danger then, and when all was over he turned to
Knox and said, "The work is done, and well done. Bring me my horse."

Washington was not mistaken. The work was indeed done. Tarleton early
in the siege had dashed out against Lauzun on the other side of the
river and been repulsed. Cornwallis had been forced back steadily into
the town, and his redoubts, as soon as taken, were included in the
second parallel. A sortie to retake the redoubts failed, and a wild
attempt to transport the army across the river was stopped by a gale
of wind. On the 17th Cornwallis was compelled to face much bloody and
useless slaughter, or to surrender. He chose the latter course, and
after opening negotiations and trying in vain to obtain delay, finally
signed the capitulation and gave up the town. The next day the troops
marched out and laid down their arms. Over 7000 British and Hessian
troops surrendered. It was a crushing defeat. The victorious army
consisted in round numbers of 5500 continentals, 3500 militia, and
7000 French, and they were backed by the French fleet with entire
control of the sea.

When Washington had once reached Yorktown with his fleet and army, the
campaign was really at an end, for he held Cornwallis in an iron grip
from which there was no escape. The masterly part of the Yorktown
campaign lay in the manner in which it was brought about, in the
management of so many elements, and in the rapidity of movement which
carried an army without any proper supplies or means of transportation
from New York to the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. The control of the sea
had been the great advantage of the British from the beginning, and
had enabled them to achieve all that they ever gained. With these odds
against him, with no possibility of obtaining a fleet of his own,
Washington saw that his only chance of bringing the war to a