MAPS OF HISTORY · ON THIS DAY · October 19 · 1781
ON THIS DAY · 19 OCTOBER 1781
Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown as the band plays “The World…
Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown as the band plays “The World Turned Upside Down.” The American war is effectively over.
THE MOMENT IN CONTEXT
It begins at the ✕ by Boston: on 19 April 1775, redcoats marching to seize militia gunpowder trade fire at Lexington and Concord and lose 273 men on the retreat. For six years the war seesaws — Washington’s genius is less winning battles than keeping an army in being while Congress keeps a cause in being. The British arrows on your map show the plan that should have worked: Howe takes New York, then Philadelphia; Burgoyne drives down from Canada to cut New England off. But Burgoyne’s column dies in the woods at Saratoga in October 1777 — and that defeat, more than any victory, decides the war, because it convinces France the rebels are a sound investment.
From Chapter 2 — The American Revolution of The Age of Revolutions, 1775–1848 (SEP 1783).
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TEACH THIS IN 5 MINUTES
- Why it happened — Distance as a weapon. Britain had to project force 3,000 miles by sail — three months for an order and its answer. The rebels didn’t need to win; they needed to not lose…
- The turn — Saratoga, 17 October 1777. A plan drawn in London — three columns converging on Albany — dissolved in American woods: Howe went to Philadelphia instead, and Burgoyne, cut off,…
- What it changed — A constitution that exports. The state constitutions, then the federal one of 1787 — written, ratified, amendable — turn Enlightenment theory into working precedent. Every…
Then ask the room: Britain had the world’s best navy, deepest purse and most professional army. Make the case that it could never have won. The argued answer is on the chapter page →
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