Early on the morning of September 28, 1781, American and French troops broke camp at Williamsburg and advanced down the Virginia Peninsula toward the British army at Yorktown. Under clear skies, the allied columns moved along the main road past the Halfway House. About half a mile beyond it, the army divided: the French continued toward Yorktown by way of the Brick House, while the American Continentals filed to the right toward Munford’s Bridge, where they were to join the militia. By midday, the heads of both columns had reached their assigned ground near the British defenses.
Brigadier General Peter Muhlenberg’s light infantry, preceded by Colonel Stephen Moylan’s dragoons and Colonel Charles Lewis’s Virginia riflemen, formed the American advance guard. On the French side, troops associated with Baron de St. Simon moved forward alongside elite chasseurs and grenadiers under the Marquis de Laval. The allied army advanced prepared to deploy quickly as it closed on Cornwallis’s outer works.
The movement followed Washington’s orders for the investment of Yorktown, issued the day before. Should the British contest the advance, he instructed the troops to place their principal reliance on the bayonet—both as a practical battlefield measure and as a direct answer to Britain’s vaunted reputation for close combat. Washington also appealed to the national honor of his troops and encouraged a “generous emulation” between the American and French forces. The march from Williamsburg was therefore more than a change of position: it marked the opening of the siege that would force Cornwallis’s surrender exactly three weeks later.
Image credit: Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, New York Public Library Digital Collections, “Plan of the Siege of Yorktown, 1781.”
