The British general now moved his headquarters into Governor Nelson's fine stone mansion. Its owner was {133} in command of the Virginia troops in the besieging army. He was the "war governor" who had left his crops to their fate, and his plows in the furrows, while his horses and his oxen were harnessed to the cannon that were being hurried to the siege. When Nelson learned, through a deserter, where Cornwallis and his staff were, regardless of his personal loss, he ordered the bombarding of the house. In Trumbull's famous painting, "The Surrender of Cornwallis," Governor Nelson's mansion is plainly seen. By this time, the only safe place in Yorktown was a cave, which had been dug under the bank of the river. To this spot, as the story goes, Cornwallis moved his headquarters. Here he received a British colonel who had made his way in the night through the French fleet, to bring orders from Sir Henry Clinton. Cornwallis was to hold out to the last. Seven thousand troops had sailed to his relief. His lordship served a lunch for his guest, and while they were drinking their wine, the colonel declared his intention of going up on the ramparts for a moment, to take a look at the Yankees. As he left, he gayly said that on his return he would give Washington's health in a bumper. It was useless to urge him to remain under shelter. He had scarcely climbed to the top of the redoubt when his head was shot off by a cannon ball. On October 17, the thirteenth day of the siege and the fourth anniversary of Burgoyne's surrender, a red-coated {134} drummer boy stands on the rampart and beats a parley. A white flag is raised on the British works. The roar of the cannon ceases. Cornwallis sends an officer to ask that fighting be stopped for twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours! No! "No more fighting for two hours," says Washington. Held in an iron grasp both by land and by sea, the British commander knows that all is lost. He can do nothing but surrender. At two o'clock on the afternoon of October 19, in a field not far from Washington's headquarters, the formal surrender takes place. This ceremony, so joyful to the one side, so painful to the other, is carried out in stately form. The officers on both sides wear their best uniforms and military equipments. Washington rides his favorite charger, Nelson. The stars and stripes of America, and the white flag and lilies of France, wave in triumph. While the band plays a quaint old English melody, "The World Turned Upside Down," the British troops, over seven thousand in number, slowly march between the columns of the combined armies and lay down their arms. Cornwallis was not there. Saying that he was sick, he sent O'Hara, one of his generals, to deliver up his sword, while Washington, with his usual high regard for official dignity, sent General Lincoln.