"How bad really was Cornwallis' loss at Yorktown" Topic

On a scale of 1-10, 1 being a love tap and 10 a hemorrhoid bursting blow, just how hard did both the Americans and French kick Cornwallis' backside at Yorktown?

Seriously, just how did such a relatively minor loss for the British end the war?

8, the distance over the ocean wasn't just a hop over a stream

Don't know the scale, but it appears that it was enough to do the job.

I think it was perceptional. The failure to destroy the Continental army in 1776, Trenton and Princeton, then Saratoga, these all helped get the French and Spanish into the war. Although the British army still won battles, the government at home saw the war becoming a sort of 'War without end'. I think Yorktown was the final straw, demonstrating good co-operation between the American army and the French army and navy.
In many respects, I see the American Revolutionary war to be a sort of British Vietnam – though I hope this opinion does not upset our American friends!

Good comparison I think Herky, and the divisions in domestic politics are too often ignored!

True, Cornwallis commanded the smallest of three armies in America. But it was the army being used in offensive operations, and trying to organize the Loyalists. And its destruction opened up four states (Ga, the Carolinas, Ca) from any real British control. And Cornwallis had a lot of the best troops, too; the Guards, for example.

Moreover, there had been several unsuccessful attempts to unite the French and Continental forces in offensive operations, without much success. Until Yorktown. They'd have been able to do it agasin if needed.

It's a 10; a very big deal.

I'd love to hear your explanation of "relatively minor" MiniPigs. Might use Dien Bien Phu for comparison.

Without the troops lost at Yorktown, there were plenty of British, Hessian and Tory garrison units--a lot of them distinctly second-string--but no one else conducting offensive operations. And it was by now pretty obvious that British control anywhere in the rebel 13 extended no more than half a day's march from the nearest British garrison. What's worse, British ability to conduct the war at all hinged on control of the sea--which they had, briefly, lost.

Bringing the war to a successful conclusion for the British would have involved beefing up the Royal Navy enough to be SURE they couldn't lose again, and creating an offensive force more powerful than the one which had just surrendered. How much more powerful? No one knew or knows. When continuation of the war involves writing a blank check--"our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" or thereabouts--you'd better be very sure it's worth the sacrifice.

(Never seems to be mentioned that a British win in the AWI might have been worse than a loss. Picture a sort of Ireland writ large, filled with placeholders and massive estates with money kicking back to the King's ministers. It's frequently observed that a source of non-taxpayer revenue--oil, for example--tends to impede the growth of democracy. Could British democracy have survived an unrepresented tax base the size of North America?)

Anyway, put me down for a 10.

Yorktown was just another straw that finally broke the donkey's back – probably only a 3-4 in isolation. More important was the Battle of Chesapeake Bay which brought home the realisation that naval supremacy was no longer guaranteed without which it would be foolish to continue a war that no-one had any idea how to win.

8, the distance over the ocean wasn't just a hop over a stream

This, basically. I think Britain realised at this point that the campaign was going nowhere and that it would be folly to commit further men and resources. Britain still retained Canada so it basically cut it's losses. I don't think the result was all that significant at the time, but obviously had huge repercussions subsequently.

It was also a world war. Just as the presence and then the destruction of the TIRPITZ in Norway affected the Med and even India, the loss of a British army in Virginia affected the Brit ability to keep, well, Ireland or India. See Suffren's French fleet. I agree with Fetcher Pratt; the British had resources to regain/keep one place in 1782, and it had to be India. And Ireland. And Gibralter.

@doc mcb

That's a very good point. The British army of the period was tiny and scattered all over the globe. Most military expenditure at the time was concentrated on the navy.

+1 nearly everything else said here.

The world war was the reason Yorktown was decisive, not minor. The British had sufficient forces to win a war against rebelling North American colonies, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and the nations of India, or maybe even a combination of two or three of those, but not all of them at once.

After France declared war in 1778, the UK began displacing forces from North America to the Caribbean, and subsequently many of the reinforcements to the New World went south instead of north. The forces lost at Yorktown were virtually irreplaceable in the strategic sense, and represented the last offensive capability left in North America at the time. The combination of the ever-improving Continental Army, ever-replenishing rebel militias, and professional French troops with full-scale naval and siege train support simply overmatched the British troops left in the American colonies, and it was obvious by 1782 that the attempt to outlast the rebellion had failed. Even brilliant British naval and amphibious victories in the Caribbean later that year and the next were too little, too late.

- Ix

The Brits had tried and lost the north (driven from Boston and surrender at Saratoga), tried and lost in the central colonies before getting penned up in New York, and then the lost in the south…given the situation in the colonies, and the aforementioned strategic context, Yorktown was the final straw. Although it was a major factor, I won't give it a 10 since the war went on for another two years while negotiators worked out the treaty, and they remained in New York that whole time.

I wouldn't say the Crown forces had lost in the central colonies but there was definitely a stalemate.

As other have pointed out, the French defeat of the Royal Navy in the Chesapeake and the consequent failure to relieve Cornwallis, I think was paramount, and posed serious questions re. the struggle for the sugar islands of the Caribean which were always going to be more important than the 13 Colonies. It didn't help that Clinton the C-in-Cin New York believed he had been given an impossible job from the start.

It's also fair to say that Cornwallis was the Crown's best fighting general commanding a dwindling core of some of the toughest, most experienced troops in America. He had been building a diamond flush to the Ace and been beaten by Aces and Jacks; his Ace of Diamonds. Painful.

Militarily, probably 7 or 8 – it was a loss that could me made good with time and effort. Politically, 10+ – the cost was no longer worth the benefit of keeping the colonies that did not really add all that much to the English economy.

Possibly worth noting that Yorktown must have brought home to the Horse Guards their lack of depth in "the colonies." Outside of the Carolinas, which were disputed, You could find yourself a decent hill on American-held land and see past any British position--Yorktown, New York, Newport--to the ocean beyond. Nowhere was there room to retreat. Any single British defensive loss meant the loss of the associated garrison/army, and Washington never gave up on taking back New York in a coup de main. While if the British won, the Americans could fall back all the way to the Appalachians--and did anyone really want to try King's Mountain again? Yorktown was a terrible blow, but I think it also brought home to London that the war was already lost.

Raylev, I think you underestimate the extend to which the war was already over in 1782, and they were just haggling over boundaries and displaced citizens. When you go over it regiment by regiment, the US was already sending the Continentals home. By the time the British evacuate New York and Charleston, there are hardly enough Americans still in uniform for the parades. Everyone knows the British aren't leaving those garrisons to resume the war.

In fact, I've seen a little note from a doctor which accompanied a sick Continental officer going to the Bahamas for his health, noting that yes, on paper there's still a war, but let's be serious for a bit: the poor man is really sick. When convalescent leave takes no account of battle lines, the war's over.

Yorktown was the second army the British lost at during the war. And they had already lost the Carolinas and were stalemated in the north.

After Yorktown the British were bottled up in Charleston, Savannah, and New York, thanks to the Royal Navy which allowed the British to hold those three ports.

And the war did continue until 1783 though Yorktown was the last major action.

10, especially if you add in the defeat of the Royal Navy to relieve him.

The 7,000 plus soldiers lost at Yorktown was significant, given the number of troops the British had in the American colonies at the time. Britain had suffered heavier losses in 18th century campaigns. However the numbers only tell part of the story.

The army lost at Yorktown included most of the Southern field army that Cornwallis had lead during the summer of 1780 that was not lost at Cowpens. It included a large portion of the reinforcements that Alexander Leslie brought south with him in late 1780. It included most of the troops that Arnold and Phillips lead in their raids on Virginia in early 1781.

After Cornwallis marched northward in 1781 Rowden had been forced to strip garrisons in order to cobble together a field army to oppose Greene. After that, even with reinforcements of three regiments from the British Isles, the army of the south was no longer strong enough to both face Greene's army in the field and hold territory deep in the Carolina interior. Conrwallis's loss at Yorktown insured this would continue to be the case.

The defeat of Cornwallis released Anthony Wayne to operate against the British forces in Savannah. The troops he took south from Virginia were small, some dragoons and Posey's Virginians, but they provided a backbone for South Carolina and Georgia militia blockading the British garrison.

Cornwallis's defeat came on the heals of the loss of West Florida to Galvez. With the British having lost the initiative in the southern North American colonies Spain was safely able to shift its attention to the Bahamas (which they took in 1782) and Jamaica.