This week, we made our way to Yorktown where the famous battle took place. In September of 1781, General George Washington and General Jean-Baptiste de Rochambeau led the Continental and French armies to converge on Yorktown, Virginia. There they found General Charles Cornwallis and his British army occupying a fortified position. The allied armies began a siege of Yorktown, and with the help of French artillery, they successfully overtook the British’s heavily outnumbered and desperate defense. Two key redoubts, numbers 9 and 10, stood outside the British lines, which were successfully assaulted by Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette on the night of October 14, 1781. This allowed American and French artillery to fire directly into the British lines. With no hope of relief and supplies running low, Cornwallis attempted a breakout, but was forced back by the allied armies. On October 19, 1781, Cornwallis surrendered, effectively ending the war in America. In an attempt to humiliate the victors, Cornwallis had his second-in-command, General O’Hara, surrender his sword. However, O’Hara, either out of foolishness or in an attempt to embarrass the Americans, tried to present it to the French commander, Rochambeau. Rochambeau gestured to General Washington, who refused the sword from anybody but Cornwallis and directed O’Hara to surrender it to his own second-in-command, General Benjamin Lincoln.