1780. Lincoln surrenders to Clinton at Charleston. Defeat of Gates by Cornwallis in the first battle of Camden. Treason of Benedict Arnold. Capture and execution of André. The British are defeated at King’s Mountain. 1781. American victory at Cowpens. The ratification of the Articles of Confederation by the several states completed. Greene is defeated by Cornwallis at Guilford Court-House. The British are victorious at Hobkirk’s Hill (second battle of Camden). New London burned by Arnold. Battle of Eutaw Springs. Washington and Rochambeau, aided by the French fleet under Count de Grasse, besiege Cornwallis in Yorktown. Surrender of Cornwallis. IX YORKTOWN AND THE SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS (1781) The year 1781 opened with small promise of a speedy ending of the American struggle for independence. New York remained in the hands of the English. Cornwallis was confident of success in the South. But Greene’s brilliant campaigning and Lafayette’s strategy left Cornwallis with a wearied army devoid of any fruits of victory, and, finally returning to the seaboard, he settled himself at Yorktown. Washington, before New York, had watched the Southern campaigns closely. Word came from the Count de Grasse that the French fleet under his command was ready to leave the West Indies and join in operations in Virginia. Washington at once planned a new campaign, destined to prove of peculiar brilliancy. He was joined by Rochambeau’s French army from Newport. Clinton, the British commander in New York, was tricked into believing that the city was to be closely besieged. But the American and French armies, six thousand strong, passed by New York in a race through Princeton and Philadelphia to Chesapeake Bay, which they reached on September 5th, the day that De Grasse entered with his fleet to join the other French fleet which had been set free from Newport. De Grasse maintained his command of Chesapeake Bay in spite of the futile attack of Admiral Graves and the British fleet. If Rodney, who had sailed for England, had been in Graves’ place the outcome might have been different. A defeat of De Grasse would have meant British control of the water and a support for Cornwallis, which would have saved his army and ruined Washington’s plans. Yorktown affords one of the striking illustrations in Captain Mahan’s _Influence of Sea Power upon History_.--EDITOR. I