Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Yorktown   /jˈɔrktˌaʊn/   Listen
Yorktown

noun
1.
A historic village in southeastern Virginia to the north of Newport News; site of the last battle of the American Revolution.
2.
In 1781 the British under Cornwallis surrendered after a siege of three weeks by American and French troops; the surrender ended the American Revolution.  Synonym: siege of Yorktown.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Yorktown" Quotes from Famous Books



... good soldiers, said Captain Hollis ter; they stood us in hand a good turn at Yorktown; nor do I think, although I am an ignorant man about the great movements of the army, that his excellency would have been able to march ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... despite the victory at Saratoga. England was not well served in this American war. She had no Washington to direct her campaign. Gage, Burgoyne, and Cornwallis were not equal to the responsibilities thrown upon them. Cornwallis's defeat at Yorktown on the 19th October, 1781, was the death-blow to the hopes of England in North America. This disaster led to the resignation of Lord North, whose heart was never in the war, and to the acknowledgment by England, a few months later, of the independence of her ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... was released, and his heart was filled with lasting gratitude. When the campaign opened in the spring, the young man was with his regiment near Yorktown, Virginia. They were ordered to attack a fort, and he fell at the first volley ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... the family:— Abraham, the pioneer first mentioned,—Isaac, Jacob, Thomas, and John. Jacob and John remained in Virginia; the former was a soldier in the War of the Revolution, and took part as lieutenant in a Virginia regiment at the siege of Yorktown. Isaac went to a place on the Holston River in Tennessee; Thomas followed his brother to Kentucky, lived and died there, and his children then emigrated to Tennessee [Footnote: It is an interesting coincidence for the knowledge of which we are indebted to Colonel ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... England might send fresh armies and fresh fleets, but there were men on land and sea ready to oppose them, ready to die for the freedom they desired and the independence they had proclaimed; and it was only a few months ago that the war had been virtually ended by the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner

... door, and charge a nickel to go in. Which will history say is the greater man, Sam Adams or Robert F. Lee? If these were Washington's armies going by, you would probably feel a little excited, though you have had a hundred and twenty years to get used to Yorktown and the Philadelphia Congress. Well, Washington is no more to the nation than ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... of the world might, and most probably would, have been completely changed; for Waterloo was one of those decisive battles which dominate the ages through their results, belonging to the same class of combats as do Marathon, Pharsalia, Lepanto, Blenheim, Yorktown, and Trafalgar. It was decided by water, and not by fire, though the latter was hot enough on that fatal field to satisfy the most determined lover of courage ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... electricity were identified by Franklin. 3. A complete success or an entire failure was anticipated. 4. Good men and bad men are found in all communities. 5. Vapors rise from the ocean and fall upon the land. 6. The Revolutionary war began at Lexington and ended at Yorktown. 7. Alas! all hope has fled. 8. Ah! I am surprised at the news. 9. Oh! we shall certainly drown. 10. Pshaw! you are dreaming. 11. ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... to Canada; they too resist the encroachments of the Mother Country upon their rights as English citizens; they suffer through the long winter at Valley Forge and join with Washington in his midnight vigils; they rejoice at Yorktown; they dream with Jefferson and plead with Webster; their hearts are fired with the news of Sumter; they clinch their teeth at Bull Run; they gather hope at Donelson, but they shudder at Shiloh; they struggle ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... and old sideboard laden with family silver, besides a much-coveted mahogany cellaret containing some of that very rare Madeira for which the host was famous. Here were more easy-chairs and more portraits—one of Major Horn, who fell at Yorktown, in cocked hat and epaulets, and two others in mob-caps and ruffles —both ancient ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... flood is a small gold locket found in the ruins of the Hurlbut house yesterday. The locket contains a small coil of dark brown hair, and has engraved on the inside the following remarkable lines: "Lock of George Washington's hair, cut in Philadelphia while on his way to Yorktown, 1781." Mr. Benford, one of the proprietors of the house, states that the locket was the property of his sister, who was lost in the flood, and was presented to her by an old lady in Philadelphia, whose mother and ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... fifty-nine men, all from Worcester, enlisted under Capt. Jonas Hubbard. During the seven dark years that followed, this town never wavered in its devotion to the cause of liberty, and was represented on many of the most important battle-fields, as well as at the surrender of Yorktown, which terminated the struggle for independence. Saturday, the 14th of July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was received. It was publicly read, for the first time on Massachusetts soil, from ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various

... the Pow-ha-tan villages that stood very near the shores of Chesapeake Bay, and almost opposite the now historic site of Yorktown, came one biting day, in the winter of 1607, an Indian runner, whose name was Ra-bun-ta. He came as one that had important news to tell, but he paused not for shout or question from the inquisitive boys who were tumbling about in the light snow, in their ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks

... in 1862, not upon Manassas, but on Yorktown, filled the less enthusiastic of his henchmen with consternation. To the general eye he seemed to have pitched on the very point where the enemy wanted to meet with all the gain in their favor. This direct route to Richmond they had tried to make impregnable. The President, whom McClellan ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... find its adversary unprepared, but the Army of Northern Virginia steadily confronted it, ever ready to receive any attack. At Cold Harbour they paused, facing each other, and General Grant, having received sixteen thousand men from Butler by way of Yorktown on June 1st, made an attack, but found our lines immovable. In his ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... retire. Late in 1782 we find him again in command at Isle aux Noix and not sure but that he may at any time be surprised by the Americans. It seems odd that, though Cornwallis had already surrendered at Yorktown, and the war was really over, Nairne was still hoping for final victory for Great Britain; on February 8th, 1783, he writes: "It is to be hoped that affairs will at last take a favourable turn to Great Britain; her cause is really a just one." In ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... served through the Revolution, participating in many of the greatest victories won by the Americans, sharing the worst hardships of the war with his fellow patriots, and laying down his arms only after Cornwallis had surrendered his sword at Yorktown. ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson

... were forced to evacuate Philadelphia and were driven back across New Jersey to New York; and, finally, by one of the most brilliant marches in history, Washington transferred his whole army from the Hudson to the Potomac, and trapped Cornwallis and his army of seven thousand men at Yorktown. Cornwallis tried desperately to free himself, but to no avail, and on October 19, 1781, ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... of war, my boy, as I have, you would not be so eager for it. God forbid it should deluge this frontier with blood; but if it do, old as I am, I will shoulder the old Brown Bess there above the fireplace that your grandfather bore at Brandywine and Yorktown." ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... shall send through the past, In the trenches of Yorktown to waken the slain; While the sod of King's Mountain shall heave at the blast, And give up its ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... Captain was a gruff and blunt man, grizzled and weather-beaten, a woman-hater, he could be a delightful companion when once his confidence was gained; and as we drifted in the mild spring weather through the long reaches between the passes he talked of Trenton and Brandywine and Yorktown. There was more than one bond of sympathy between us, for he worshipped Washington, detested the French party, and had a hatred for "filthy Democrats" second to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... is now boiling with patriotic wrath against McClellan. Very well. But when McClellan captured maple guns at Centerville and Manassas, when he digged mud and graves for our soldiers before Yorktown, and in the Chickahominy, the Times was extatic beyond measure and description, extatic over the matured plans, the gigantic strategy of McClellan—and at that epoch the Times powerfully contributed ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... smoke of conflict ever appears that resolute, olive face with the dark eye fixed and the thin lip curved in decision or expectancy. We mechanically repeat Campbell's elegy as we mark "Hohenlinden," and linger with patriotic gratitude over "Yorktown," notwithstanding the absurd prominence given to the French officers; Conde, Turenne, Moreau, Lannes, Massena, and Lafayette fight over again before us the wars of the Fronde, the Empire, or the Republic. The monotony of these scenes ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... troops of the Army of the Tennessee. The achievements of this hour will give a new meaning to this memorable day, and Vicksburg will brighten the glow of the patriot's heart which kindles at the mention of Bunker Hill and Yorktown. This is indeed an auspicious day for you. The God of Battle is with you. The dawn of a conquered peace is breaking upon you. The plaudits of an admiring world will hail you wherever you go, and it will be an ennobling heritage, surpassing all riches, to have ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge

... was the eldest son— Edward C. Fish was his brother-in-law; They both enlisted in the Mechanic, And served their time in the war. Fernand O. Page was the second son; He served in the Third Infantry; He was wounded and lost both his feet On duty at Yorktown siege." ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... William Gill, entered the service at the beginning of the war, and became connected with the staff of General Washington. He served in the capacity of aid to the Commander-in-chief through the war, and was with him at the surrender of Cornwallis, at Yorktown. From this point he returned to his family, in Mecklenburg, Va., who had not heard from ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter

... the American Colonies, and in 1781, in consequence of wretchedly bad strategy, had lost command of the sea. The French had been helping the revolted Americans, not for love of them, but from enmity to their rivals. After the capitulation of the British troops at Yorktown, a number of loyalists still held out under discouraging conditions in Canada, and the French desired to dislodge them from the important waterway ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott

... Europe, a lower-caste Europe, having about the same relation to the Cisatlantic continent that the farmer's barn has to his house. Mild refutations of this modest doctrine having been attempted without success, posters in the necessary red-letter type were issued at Concord, Bunker Hill, Yorktown, etc., which might be translated somewhat thus:—"America has its own independent root in the world's centre, its own independent destiny in the Providential thought." This important fact, having then and there exploded itself into legibility, and come to be known and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... the Revolution went on until the fall of the year 1781, when General Washington made a sudden move that drew his men away from the vicinity of New York before the British army could foresee it. Then he hurried to the South. There, at Yorktown, in Virginia, the combined American army hemmed in, and after a battle forced to surrender, Lord Cornwallis, the British commander in the ...
— The Story of Manhattan • Charles Hemstreet

... proclaiming that if it doesn't conduct itself more to John Bull's liking, "it will soon feel the iron hand beneath the velvet glove." Turn loose your "iron hand," you old he-bawd—and you'll soon stick it further under your own coat-tails than you did at Yorktown. . . . ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... he received news of Lord Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown, on October 19, 1781. He pushed on his lines, and arriving in Wilmington he found that Major Craig had taken ship and was flying from the land he had so scourged ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... of delays attending the organization of the Congress and the canvass of the electoral vote. Our people have already worthily observed the centennials of the Declaration of Independence, of the battle of Yorktown, and of the adoption of the Constitution, and will shortly celebrate in New York the institution of the second great department of our constitutional scheme of government. When the centennial of the institution of the judicial ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... says,—"They were used by the Quartermaster's department in discharging transports, were precisely what was needed for the disembarkation of General Franklin's division, constituted a portion of the numerous bridges that were built over Wormley Creek during the siege of Yorktown, and were of the highest use in the Chickahominy; while over the Lower Chickahominy, some seventy-five thousand men, some three hundred pieces of artillery, and the enormous baggage-trains of the army, passed over a bridge of the extraordinary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... Monroe. Yorktown. Williamsburg. Fair Oaks. Lee in Command. McDowell Retained at Fredericksburg. Lee Assumes the Offensive. Gaines's Mill. The Seven Days' Retreat. Malvern Hill. Union Army at Harrison's Landing. Discouragement. McClellan Leaves the Peninsula. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... Washington's confidential secretary, a position in which he soon grew restless. His ambition was to be one of the great military leaders of the Revolution. Before the end of the war he had gone back to fighting and he distinguished himself in the last battle of the war at Yorktown. The other youthful figure was the Marquis de La Fayette. It is not without significance that a noble square bears his name in the capital named after Washington. The two men loved each other. The young French aristocrat, with both a great name and great possessions, was ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... At Yorktown she was ordered to work on a battery, which she did right faithfully. Among her comrades, Deborah's young and jaunty appearance won for her the sobriquet "blooming boy." She was a great favourite in the ranks. She shirked nothing, ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... of the Maypole was not much shrunken when the guests of the house of Jaquelin began to arrive. First to come, and from farthest away, was Mr. Richard Ambler, of Yorktown, who had ridden from that place to Williamsburgh the afternoon before, and had that morning used the planter's pace to Jamestown,—his industry being due to the fact that he was courting the May Queen's elder sister. ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... separates Secession from loyalty. Let them take up their mighty march through the revolted territory, if it will not otherwise submit, and proclaim as they go, "Liberty throughout the land!" Let the flag that waved over the suffering heroes of Valley Forge, and the conquerors of Yorktown, wave forever on the Capitol, and over every village and subject in the land! Nay, it must be so. We must bow, if we do not conquer. They have proclaimed it. Come down, then, from the Northern mountains, and out from the forests and the fields, ye sons of the Pilgrims, with your ...
— Government and Rebellion • E. E. Adams

... The battle was fought in June 1780, and my parents were married in the autumn of the same year. My father did not go to sea again until after my birth, which took place the very day that Cornwallis capitulated at Yorktown. These combined events set the young sailor in motion, for he felt he had a family to provide for, and he wished to make one more mark on the enemy in return for the beauty-spot his wife so gloried in. He ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... Washington and Jefferson and Hamilton to go down in ruin and nothingness? While the old world, with her tyrannies, scoffed at the failure of the Republic, men thought of Bunker Hill and Valley Forge and Yorktown. They thought of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They recalled the tribute of one of the greatest of English statesmen, who characterized the American Constitution as "the greatest political instrument ever struck off by ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... 34. Yorktown.—Road crosses the Guadalupe River on a bridge; toll one dollar for a six-mule team. It then crosses a low bottom for three miles; from thence the road is good, over a rolling country, with plenty of wood, water, ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... book, or it may be a newspaper, since these are swarming every where at the present time, and read that a person has just deceased, who was at Yorktown, in Virginia, during the whole siege, in the American revolution. I am supposing here that you have already learned where Yorktown is; for geography, to some extent at least, should precede history; but if not, I would let it pass for the moment, since we cannot do every thing at once, and proceed to inquire about the siege, and ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... about American history, especially about spirit and equipment. Where was the equipment at Valley Forge? What about the troops under Washington that took the breastworks at Yorktown without a single round of powder—just bayonets? What about the war of 1812, when we had no army and the English thought we had no navy? You don't ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke

... garden, for which he had an attachment almost comparable to his love for the old Fontenoy library and the Fontenoy stables. He was a gentleman of the old school, slight, withered, high-nosed and hawk-eyed, dressed with precision and carrying an empty sleeve. The arm he had lost at Yorktown; a temper too hot to hold he daily lost, but he had the art to keep his friends. There were duels to his account, as well as a reputation for great courage and coolness during the late war. Under the name of Horatius he contributed to The Virginia Federalist diatribes ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... Constellation and the sloop of war Boston, under Commodore Kearney, is now on its way to the China and Indian seas for the purpose of attending to our interests in that quarter, and Commander Aulick, in the sloop of war Yorktown, has been instructed to visit the Sandwich and Society islands, the coasts of New Zealand and Japan, together with other ports and islands frequented by our whale ships, for the purpose of giving them countenance and protection should they be required. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... Virginia, when she needed a sword I found one. Now, I need bread." The worn-out old soldier lived only a little while longer, and in 1818 died and was buried at Locust Grove, Ky. It has been said that a French officer who met Clark at Yorktown, on his return to France, said to the king: "Sire, there are two Washingtons in America." "What do you mean?" said the king. "I mean," said the officer, "that there is Washington whom the world knows; and there is George Rogers ...
— The story of Kentucky • Rice S. Eubank

... that the mantle of Elijah of old had fallen upon the shoulders of Mr. Coudert, for then he might have stood some chance of being translated. [Laughter.] A few years ago distinguished military men from abroad came here to participate in the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the surrender of Yorktown by Lord Cornwallis. They were invited here by the Government, the descendants of all distinguished foreigners, to participate in that historical event, except the descendants of Lord Cornwallis. [Laughter.] And if our French guests had been here then, and had gone down and seen ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... one consideration, Sir, which, though it is not decisive, may have an influence on your resolution. Captain Asgill is doubtless your prisoner, but he is among those whom the arms of the King contributed to put into your hands at Yorktown. Although this circumstance does not operate as a safeguard, it however justifies the interest I permit myself to take in this affair. If it is in your power, Sir, to consider and have regard to it, you will do what is agreeable to their ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... Union. The new Republic was then beset with danger on every hand. It had not conquered a place in the family of nations. The decisive battle of the war for independence, whose centennial anniversary will soon be gratefully celebrated at Yorktown, had not yet been fought. The colonists were struggling not only against the armies of a great nation, but against the settled opinions of mankind; for the world did not then believe that the supreme authority of government ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... they marched from salt water across Virginia to the mountains—and then they marched back to salt water again. Cornwallis had called Lafayette "the boy" and had declared that "the boy should not escape him." Finally Cornwallis fortified Yorktown, and Lafayette settled down at Williamsburg. And there they still ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing

... years ago the people of Philadelphia were startled by a famous cry of a watchman at dead of night, making every one who heard it wild with joy. It was just after the battle of Yorktown, the last of the Revolution, when Lord Cornwallis and his army surrendered to Washington. The bearer of the news of victory, entering Philadelphia, stopped an old watchman to ask the way to the State House, where ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... hands full fighting Bonaparte, that her war with us was a sideshow, and that this was uncommonly lucky for us—as lucky quite as those ships from France under Admiral de Grasse, without whose help Washington could never have caught Cornwallis and compelled his surrender at Yorktown, October 19, 1781. Did you know that there were more French soldiers and sailors than Americans at Yorktown? Is it well to keep these things from the young? I have not done with the War of 1812. There is a political aspect of it that I shall later ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister

... what your sister wants me to tell you about. My mother, your grandmother, was a widow. I never saw my own father, for I was born while he was away fighting in the battles of the Revolution and he never returned; he was killed at Yorktown. When I was about ten years old my mother had an offer of marriage from a farmer in Medway who had lost his wife; his children had grown up, married and settled excepting one son twenty years old. It was a matter of convenience on both sides; ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee

... body-servant, who had perilled his life in many a field, beginning on the heights of Boston, in 1775, and ending in 1781, when Cornwallis surrendered, and the captive army, with inexpressible chagrin, laid down their arms at Yorktown. Billy rode a cream-colored horse, of the finest form; and his old Revolutionary cocked hat indicated that its owner had often heard the roar of cannon and small-arms, and had encountered many trying scenes. Billy was a dark ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... from within which responded to the alarm of Paul Revere on that April night, and which went marching, gun in hand, against sovereignty from without, wherever it was found on earth. It only paused at Concord, or Yorktown, then marched on to Paris, to London, to Moscow, to Pekin. Against it the powers of privilege and the forces of despotism could not prevail. Superstition and sham cannot stand before intelligence and reality. The light that first broke over ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge

... army, and her experience with a Tory uncle, who appears upon the supposed death of her father and takes her to his home in Pennsylvania, pretending to be her guardian, form the basis of the book. Historical events are accurately traced leading up to the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, with reunion and happiness for all who deserve it. Betty is worth a thousand of the fickle coquette heroines of some latter-day popular novels, and the historical setting of the story is strong ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn

... the superiority in the Antilles and in landing in the United States six thousand Frenchmen under Rochambeau, who were followed, at a later date, by another division, and assisted in investing the English army under Cornwallis at Yorktown, (1781:) the independence of America was thus secured. France would perhaps have gained a triumph over her implacable rival more lasting in its effects, had she, in addition to the display made in the English Channel, sent ten ships ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... following June to take the field. Such was his popularity with the army and the whole country that when he rejoined the army in 1781 to co-operate with the southern army, he had the high satisfaction of taking part in the reduction of Yorktown and of conducting the defeated army to the field, where they were to lay down their arms at the feet of the illustrious Washington. General Lincoln took the sword from Lord Cornwallis and delivered it ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... herself to literature. It was about this time she entered into relations with Colonel—afterward Sir Banastre—Tarleton, who was born in the same year as herself, and had served in the American army from 1776 until the surrender of Yorktown, on which he returned to England. For many years he sat in Parliament as the representative of Liverpool, his native town; and in 1817 he gained the grade of lieutenant-general, and was created a baronet. His friendship with Mrs. Robinson ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... have stirring times here. Our troops are to be marched through Richmond immediately, for the defense of Yorktown—the same town surrendered by Lord Cornwallis to Washington. But its fall or its successful ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... alliances. The moment was among the darkest England has ever passed through. We were engaged in a death-struggle against France, Spain, and the American colonies combined. Cornwallis had just repeated at Yorktown the humiliating surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga. Elliot lay locked in Gibraltar. Ireland was growing restive and menacing on one side, and the Northern powers of Europe on the other—the Armed Neutrality, as they were called—sat and watched, with their hands on their sword-hilts ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... fleets and French soldiers, gained a signal victory. An American and French army under Washington and Lafayette and a French fleet under De Grasse suddenly closed in upon the British general, Lord Cornwallis, in Yorktown, Virginia, and compelled him to surrender on 19 October, 1781, with over 7000 men. The capitulation of Cornwallis practically decided the struggle in America, for all the reserve forces of Great Britain were required in Europe, in the West Indies, ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... slowly lifted were the gladiators of that liquid arena successively made visible. Here, just above the water, defiantly floated the flag of the sunken Cumberland. There smoked the still-burning hull of the Congress. Here, up the bay, steamed the Merrimac, with two attendants, the Yorktown and the Patrick Henry. Yonder lay the great hull of the steam-frigate Minnesota, which had taken some part in the battle of the day before, but had unfortunately gone ashore on a mud-bank, from which the utmost ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Yorktown (I had accompanied him there) was greatly admired. It directed special attention to the cordial friendship which had grown up between the two branches of the English-speaking race, and ended with the hope that the prevailing peace and good-will between the two nations would exist for ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... Walter Raleigh, and Jamestown, and Plymouth, and the Pilgrim Fathers, and John Hancock, and Patrick Henry, and George Washington, and the Declaration of Independence, and Bunker's Hill, and Yorktown! Oh!" cried Ishmael with ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... the fourth son, father of General Wm. O. Butler, was born at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1760. He entered the army as a lieutenant at the age of eighteen; was with Washington at Valley Forge; was in the battle of Monmouth, and at the taking of Yorktown—being through the whole series of struggles in the Middle States, with the troops under the commander-in-chief, except for a short period when he was attached to a light corps commanded by La Fayette, who presented him a sword. Near the close of the war he went to the South with the Pennsylvania ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... you failed to notice that "York" spells 47, and you then proceed to try Inclusion by Genus and Species; regarding York as the general word, you would find New York as a species or kind of York; the same with Yorkshire, Yorktown, York Minster, etc. In this way you would, if your mastery of the Figure Alphabet were perfect, scarcely fail to notice that York spells 47; but if you fail, you then try Inclusion by Whole and Part, and run over the political divisions of the State ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)

... against the enemy. The latter had been for some time past harassed by the little army of M. de La Fayette. The fleet of Admiral de Grasse cut off the retreat of the English. Lord Cornwallis threw himself into Yorktown; on the 30th of September ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... her troops in Cheseman's Creek, an indentation of the peninsula between the York and James Rivers. After lying in camp a few days, they marched again, and Tom learned that the regiment was before Yorktown, which had been strongly fortified by the rebels to resist the advance of the ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic

... the red rust on it, That flashed in the battle tide, When from Lexington to Yorktown Sorely men's souls were tried; A plumed chapeau and a buckle, And many a relic fine, And, an by itself, the sampler, Framed in with ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... cruel treatment. No, sir-ee; on the contrary, he was inspired with renewed zeal and energy; and I can put into the mouth of my hero the immortal words which Milton spoke to the Duke of Wellington, at the siege of Yorktown: ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... Major General Benjamin F. Butler, fresh from the life of a successful lawyer, then in command at Fortress Monroe, where he arrived on the 1st of June, 1861. While there he conducted several important reconnaissances in the direction of Yorktown and Big Bethel, and thus became acquainted with a region in which he was afterwards to play a most important part. His services lasted something less than two months, and became still more notable from the fact that they made him thoroughly acquainted with General Butler. They were brought suddenly ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson

... lessons taught us by Pilgrim Fathers and Revolutionary Sires, at Plymouth Rock, on Bunker Hill, at Lexington, Concord and Yorktown; notwithstanding our Fourth of July celebrations, and ostentatious displays of patriotism; in what European nation is personal liberty hold in such contempt as in our own? Where are there such unbelievers in the natural equality and freedom of mankind? Our slaves outnumber the entire ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison

... out of the war of the Revolution, after the battles of Concord and Lexington, he went with a Connecticut company to join the Continental army, and was present at the battle of Bunker Hill. He served until the fall of Yorktown, or through the entire Revolutionary war. He must, however, have been on furlough part of the time—as I believe most of the soldiers of that period were—for he married in Connecticut during the war, had two children, and was a widower at the close. Soon after ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... were directed to rally on Stoneman, who was thus left with five hundred men of Buford's reserve, or else to push through to Gloucester Point, or Yorktown, ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... imperial Rome. In a more restricted sense, the statesmanship of Washington and Lincoln appears in the noblest light when regarded as the fruition of the various work of De Montfort and Cromwell and Chatham. The good fight begun at Lewes and continued at Naseby and Quebec was fitly crowned at Yorktown and at Appomattox. When we duly realize this, and further come to see how the two great branches of the English race have the common mission of establishing throughout the larger part of the earth a higher civilization and more permanent political order ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske

... That at the close of the ceremonies commemorative of the valor and success of our forefathers in their patriotic struggle for independence the British flag shall be saluted by the forces of the Army and Navy of the United States now at Yorktown. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... arrival at Yorktown, Kilpatrick gave me despatches for the authorities at Washington. President Lincoln, learning that I had just returned from the raid, sent for me, and I had a memorable interview with him alone in his private room. He expressed ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... at constant work with it in Washington, until May 14, 1862. He was then transferred, with his team, to a train that was ordered to join General McClellan at Fort Monroe. He then followed the fortunes of the Army of the Potomac up the Peninsula; was at the siege of Yorktown, the battle of Williamsburg, and in the swamps of the Chickahominy. He was also in the seven days' battles, and brought up at Harrison's Landing with the Army of the Potomac. He then drove his team back to Fort Monroe, where they were shipped, with the animals ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley

... took place between the ironclads "Merrimac", (or "Virginia") and "Monitor" (March 8-9, 1862). McClellan's advance was opposed by a small force of Confederates under General Magruder, which, gradually reinforced, held the historic position of Yorktown for a whole month, and only evacuated it on the 3rd of May. Two days later McClellan's advanced troops fought a sharp combat at Williamsburg and the Army of the Potomac rendezvoused on the Chickahominy with its base at White House on the Pamunkey (May 7). J. E. Johnston ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... month of maneuvers and suspense. By the end of it McClellan, based on Fortress Monroe, had accumulated a hundred and ten thousand men. The Confederates on the Peninsula, holding Yorktown, numbered fifty thousand. McClellan sadly missed McDowell, whose corps was to have taken the fort at Gloucester Point that prevented the Federal gunboats from turning the enemy's lines at Yorktown. McDowell moved south to Fredericksburg, leaving a small ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood

... history who calmly considers the record of our French naval allies in the Revolution, there appears good reason to believe that their presence did us more harm than good. Under De Grasse, the French fleet did good service in co-operation with the allied armies in the Yorktown campaign; but, with this single exception, no instance can be cited of any material aid rendered by it to the American cause. The United States navy, indeed, suffered on account of the French alliance; for despite the loss of many ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot



Words linked to "Yorktown" :   American Revolution, village, Old Dominion State, besieging, War of American Independence, Virginia, military blockade, beleaguering, siege, American Revolutionary War, VA, Old Dominion, American War of Independence, hamlet



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org