🇺🇸 🇫🇷 HOMESCHOOL HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY: Yorktown 1781

On this day in 1781, the British army under General Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, effectively ending the six-year-long American Revolution. The surrender at Yorktown is an event every American history student should know.

Yorktown sits on the south bank of the York River near the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, and Cornwallis had sensibly retreated there after his long Southern Campaign through the interior of Virginia and the Carolinas, expecting to be able to resupply his troops and if necessary evacuate them by sea. But our French allies under Admiral de Grasse had successfully blockaded the entrance to the Chesapeake to prevent any relief from arriving. Once the blockade was in place, Cornwallis’s fate was sealed. Surrounded and besieged by Washington’s Continental Army and the French under Comte de Rochambeau, Cornwallis and his army of 8000 were forced to surrender.

Here’s a great short summary of the Yorktown siege and surrender from the American Battlefields Trust. It’s perfect to read to your students this week, or perhaps to have one of them read to you:

• ➢ The Siege of Yorktown (battlefields.org)

Yorktown is today a national historical park under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. It’s a place to put on your homeschool wish-list for a future visit:

• ➢ The Yorktown Battlefield (nps.gov)

The Library of Congress has a whole collection of resources on Yorktown, as well as an excellent contemporary map that shows many of the details of the siege:

• ➢ The Surrender at Yorktown (loc.gov)

What historical events and American anniversaries are you and your students studying in your homeschool this Cygnus Term? 😊

❡ Explore more: For a quick homeschool review of the American Revolution, turn to page 298 in your River Houses history encyclopedia. It’s an ideal two-page refresher for teachers and a great introduction for students. You’ll find the Yorktown surrender on this date mentioned there, too. 📚

❡ Here, said the year: This is one of our regular posts about Homeschool Holidays & History. Subscribe to our free River Houses newsletter to get more great homeschool history lessons delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 📫

❡ Homeschool calendars: We have a whole collection of free, printable, educational homeschool calendars and planners available on our main River Houses calendar page. They will help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. Give them a try today! 🗓

❡ Support our work: If you enjoy our educational materials, please support us by starting your regular Amazon shopping from our very own homeschool teaching supplies page. When you click through from our page, any purchase you make earns us a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for helping us to keep going and growing! 🛒

❡ Join us! The aim of the River Houses project is to create a network of friendly local homeschool support groups — local chapters that we call “Houses.” Our first at-large chapter, Headwaters House, is now forming and is open to homeschoolers everywhere. Find out how to become one of our founding members on the Headwaters House membership page. 🏡