Yorktown
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Related to Yorktown: Siege of Yorktown
See also: National Parks and Monuments (table)National Parks and Monuments
National Parks
Name Type1 Location Year authorized Size
acres (hectares)
Description
Acadia NP SE Maine 1919 49,075 (19,868) Mountain and coast scenery.
..... Click the link for more information.
Yorktown,
historic town (1990 pop. 270), seat of York co., SE Va., on the York River 10 mi (16 km) from its mouth on Chesapeake Bay; settled 1631, laid out 1691. It is included in the Colonial National Historical Park (see National Parks and MonumentsNational Parks and MonumentsNational Parks
Name Type1 Location Year authorized Size
acres (hectares)
Description
Acadia NP SE Maine 1919 49,075 (19,868) Mountain and coast scenery.
..... Click the link for more information. , table). The town, once an important tobacco port, reached its zenith c.1750. The Yorktown campaignYorktown campaign,
1781, the closing military operations of the American Revolution. After his unsuccessful Carolina campaign General Cornwallis moved into Virginia to join British forces there.
..... Click the link for more information. (1781) brought to a close the American Revolution; the battlefield surrounds the town. In the Civil War, Yorktown was besieged (Apr.–May, 1862) by McClellan in the Peninsular campaignPeninsular campaign,
in the American Civil War, the unsuccessful Union attempt (Apr.–July, 1862) to capture Richmond, Va., by way of the peninsula between the York and James rivers. The Plan
Early in 1862, Gen. George B.
..... Click the link for more information. , and the city was taken by Union troops on May 4. Places of interest in Yorktown include the customhouse (c.1706; restored 1929); Grace Church (1697); the Moore House (c.1725), in which the terms of Cornwallis's surrender were negotiated; the Yorktown Monument (1881), commemorating the victory of 1781; and the American Revolution Museum.
Bibliography
See B. Davis, The Campaign That Won America: The Story of Yorktown (1970).
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Yorktown
site of American victory over British, ending Revolutionary War (1781). [Am. Hist.: Harbottle Battles, 271]
See: Battle
Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Yorktown
a village in SE Virginia: scene of the surrender (1781) of the British under Cornwallis to the Americans under Washington at the end of the War of American Independence
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