Cornwallis waited for the Royal Navy. It never came. After three weeks of bombardment—and with his supplies gone and no rescue on the horizon—he surrendered on October 19, 1781.
For two weeks, the season played a trick that no American cannon could manage. A massive, stationary high-pressure system settled over the eastern seaboard. From Maine to Georgia, the weather turned unusually mild, dry, and stubbornly calm. But the real drama unfolded at sea.
It was September 1781. General George Washington had been chasing British General Lord Cornwallis for months across the southern colonies. Cornwallis had made a fatal decision: he marched his 8,000 British troops to Yorktown, Virginia, a small port town on the Chesapeake Bay, expecting the Royal Navy to resupply and evacuate him. weather seasons in america
Most people think the harsh winter at Valley Forge was the low point of the American Revolutionary War. But few know about the strange, deadly autumn that came before it—and how a bizarre weather event in Virginia turned the tide.
The war was effectively over. And it ended not just because of French allies or American courage, but because of a capricious American autumn: dry roads for an army, contrary winds for a navy, and a season that refused to cooperate with the British Empire. Cornwallis waited for the Royal Navy
Here’s an interesting story about how an American season changed the course of history in an unexpected way.
Meanwhile, on land, the dry autumn weather gave Washington’s army a gift: hard, dusty roads that allowed them to haul their heavy siege artillery all the way from New York in record time. A wet October would have turned the roads into mud pits, stranding the cannons. Instead, clear, crisp autumn days let Washington dig siege lines around Yorktown with terrifying speed. For two weeks, the season played a trick
The British fleet, under Admiral Thomas Graves, sailed from New York to rescue Cornwallis. At the same time, a French fleet under Admiral de Grasse arrived from the Caribbean. The two navies clashed at the Battle of the Chesapeake on September 5.