Welcome to Yorktown
The campaign and siege of Yorktown took place from May 1780 until the British capitulation on 19 October 1781. By the latter stages of the American Revolution, the British had effectively two armies in the field. The first, at New York , was watched carefully by the main body of the American and French armies under the command of General George Washington. The second, based on Charleston after that city's surrender to the British in May, was charged with defeating American forces in the South and raising loyalist support there, and in doing so to cut off Southern support for the revolution - the so-called British "Southern Strategy."
The Revolution appeared to be at low ebb. Despite French support, Washington had yet to win a single decisive victory. Morale in the Continental Army was low, materiel support for the forces in the field was, as ever, low, and the British under Lt. Gen. Charles, Earl Cornwallis, were beginning their aggressive campaign in South Carolina. To meet the threat in the South, a force of American Continentals and militia under General Horatio Gates was dispatched. They were decisively defeated by Cornwallis at Camden in August of 1780. After Camden, the South lay open to the British.
Yet a little more than a year later, despite all, Cornwallis' force of about 8000 men surrendered to a combined American-French force in a field at Yorktown, Virginia, after a siege that lasted less than a month. The allied forces missed the true significance of the surrender; Washington marched immediately back to New York. But Yorktown devastated British will to continue the war. "Oh, God, it is all over," cried the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and so it was.
Few military campaigns in history have seen such a rapid reversal of fortune. Luck played only a supporting role. Instead, the outcome was made possible by a sequence of decisions made possible by events, in turn made possible by determination, perseverance, and fortunate opportunism. Knowing how to grasp the nettle -- and doing it -- made Yorktown and all that came afterwards possible. This staff ride should expose those decisions, and those events, in ways that will help 21st century men and women find the determination, perseverance and opportunity to apply these examples in their own lives.
We have three purposes here. First, is to understand the critical role that courageous leaders play in their organizations when conditions just aren't going their way, and an opportunity presents itself that could radically change the picture for good or bad. Greene's strategy against Cornwallis in the Carolinas is an example, but of course the best example is Washington, frustrated outside New York, seeing an opportunity to work the French Navy and his own (and French) army together, across hundreds of miles and uncertain communications, to trap a British army in the field.
Second, it's important to understand the role personalities play within organizations. Had Rochambeau been less willing to subordinate himself to Washington, de Grasse to cooperate with the shore, Wayne to work for Lafayette, things might not have worked out as well for the allies. On the other side, the Clinton-Cornwallis relationship was one of several that inhibited the British from fully exploiting their advantages.
Finally, the role of persistence and vision in this campaign - and elsewhere - should be studied and analyzed. Washington was able to drop his own vision of victory when it became impractical, and adopt another, because the opportunity presented itself against the larger backdrop of persistent slugging toward the goal of independence.