On the moonless night of October 14, 1781, Allied French and American forces launched a daring, carefully coordinated bayonet assault against two vital British outworks protecting the besieged port of Yorktown, Virginia. Redoubts 9 and 10—fortified earthen positions in front of Lord Cornwallis’s main lines—blocked completion of the Allies’ second parallel trench network, which would bring siege artillery within decisive range of the British defenses. To preserve surprise and avoid alerting the British sentries, the assaulting troops advanced quietly with fixed bayonets; the American light infantry carried unloaded muskets.
The American force, part of the Marquis de Lafayette’s command and led in the assault by Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton, charged Redoubt 10. Its soldiers crossed the ditch, cut through or clambered over the abatis, and overwhelmed the defenders in a short, fierce action. At the same time, French troops under Baron de Vioménil stormed Redoubt 9, advancing under British fire before carrying the position with the bayonet. Washington praised the attackers’ “intrepidity, coolness and firmness,” reporting that they advanced without returning fire and “effected the business with bayonet only.”
The fall of both redoubts allowed the Allies to complete the second parallel and bring their artillery substantially closer to Yorktown. Within hours, the new works were incorporated into the siege lines; Cornwallis’s position became untenable, and he surrendered five days later, on October 19, 1781.
Image: French painter Eugène Lami’s 1840 oil painting, Storming a Redoubt at Yorktown, vividly dramatizes the desperate, close-quarters combat that unfolded on the night of October 14, 1781, during the Siege of Yorktown. The artwork depicts the American light infantry assault on British Redoubt No. 10, showing soldiers scrambling over the defensive earthworks and sharpened wooden abatis beneath a chaotic nighttime sky. By capturing the raw energy of the hand-to-hand struggle, Lami highlights the determination of the troops who carried the position with fixed bayonets, helping break Cornwallis’s outer defensive line and paving the way for the Allied victory at Yorktown.
