A lovely example of one of the earliest, most detailed, and rarest plans of the Battle of Yorktown, by French engineers on the scene.

The years immediately after the Yorktown campaign saw a flood of plans issued by American, British, and French publishers. The plan offered here is the second-earliest, published in Paris by George Louis le Rouge in December 1781 and preceded only by a plan issued in London the previous month. Le Rouge’s plan was based on a manuscript drafted in the field by engineers in the command of the Berthier brothers, Charles-Louis and Louis-Alexandre; the latter of whom would later attain fame as one of Napoleon’s marshals.[1] Drawn by professionals on the scene, it is also one of the most richly-detailed plans of the battle.

Le Rouge’s plan depicts vividly the tightening of the noose around British forces that would culminate in Cornwallis’ surrender. The positions of the British, French, and American forces are respectively identified with red, yellow, and green. As the enemy approached on September 29, Cornwallis decided to withdraw his forces stationed on the outskirts of the town, abandoning positions marked on the map as the “Premiere Position des Anglois.” This freed the Americans and French to set up their first siege lines, marked “Premiere Paralelle du 6 Octobre”, and begin bombarding Yorktown.

As indicated by the letters A and B on the map, the legends note how on the night of October 14, the French and Americans each seized one of the redoubts guarding the eastern approach to the town (Redoubt 10, here labeled “B”, was captured by a force led by none other than Alexander Hamilton.) The besiegers then established the “Seconde Paralelle” and continued bombarding the town from even closer range. Letters C and E indicate how the French artillery west of the town (at letter D) drove the English vessels from their initial positions to a point further downriver, where the HMS Charron was set ablaze. Hemmed in across the York River at Gloucester Point, British forces under the infamous Banastre Tarleton helplessly watched the spectacle.

Cornwallis eventually realized that his position was hopeless and surrendered to Washington on October 19.  Moore’s house (“Morehouse”), where the surrender was signed, is shown at lower right and identified as such–a feature not shown on British plans of the battle!

It should be noted that there is a rectangular patch filling a small excised area in the upper left of the map. This was evidently done contemporary with the production of the map: The copies of the map in the Library of Congress, Mount Vernon, and the George III Collection have a similar patch, and we have yet to see an example without it. The removed area contained a dedication to Lt. General De Vault (1717–90), Director of the Depot de la Guerre from 1763 to 1788. No other engraved surface is affected, and this is in every respect a fine example of a very rare and most interesting plan.

The Yorktown Campaign
By early 1781, the American Revolutionary War had devolved into something of a stalemate.  While the Americans controlled most of the colonies, the British maintained virtually impregnable strongholds in New York, Charleston, and Savannah. However, Washington was aware that the superior naval power of the British meant that they could strike a devastating blow to the American cause at virtually any time. Thus, Washington knew that bold action would have to be taken by the Americans and their French allies if they were to finally win the war.  The original objective was New York City, and Washington and Rochambeau’s armies camped just north of the city but were deterred by the complexities of an invasion of Manhattan.

The great opportunity came in July 1781, when the Marquis de Lafayette informed Washington that the main British southern force under Lord Cornwallis had moved into Virginia. While Cornwallis had previously met with some tactical success in his march through the Carolinas, he failed to hold the territory he had traversed and had headed to Yorktown in the hope of being resupplied there by the Royal Navy. Both armies then began their march toward Yorktown.  To his misfortune, this lifeline was severed when French naval forces under the Comte de Grasse defeated the British fleet under Admiral Thomas Graves in the Chesapeake Bay at the Battle of the Capes on September 5.  When Washington and Rochambeau’s forces arrived at Yorktown on September 28, Cornwallis’s force was effectively trapped.

This crushing defeat caused the fall of the government of British Prime Minister, Lord North, and the country’s leadership decided that the cause in America was effectively lost. Hostilities wound down, and the British recognized the independence of the United States at the Treaty of Paris, signed there in September 1783.

References
Kenneth Nebenzahl, Atlas of the American Revolution, #47. Kenneth Nebenzahl, A Bibliography of Printed Battle Plans of the American Revolution, #187. John R. Sellers and Patricia Molen Van Ee, Maps and Charts of North America and the West Indies 1750-1789, #1463. Not in William Wooldridge, Mapping Virginia. Cf. Howard C. Rice, Jr. & Anne S. K. Brown, The American Campaigns of Rochambeau’s Army, vol. II, pp. 157–159 & figs. 87–89 (referring to the Berthiers’ original manuscript).

Offered in partnership with Robert Augustyn Antique Maps and Prints.

[1] The source manuscript, on which is inscribed (in translation), “drawn freehand by the Berthier brothers in haste,” is today preserved in the Bibliothéque du Ministiére des Armées (Terre) in Paris.