Yorktown Battlefield

Yorktown Battlefield, administered by the National Park Service as part of Colonial National Historical Park, preserves the site of the siege of Yorktown in October 1781 — the final major military engagement of the American Revolutionary War, which ended with the surrender of British General Cornwallis to General George Washington and French forces under Rochambeau. The battlefield encompasses more than 4,000 acres of fields, earthworks, marshland, and fortifications on the York River peninsula in Virginia. The park visitor center houses a museum with original Revolutionary War artillery, British and American weapons, a reproduction of Cornwallis's campaign tent, and an audio-visual program explaining the three-week siege. Two self-guided auto tour routes — the American and British Tour (9 miles) and the Encampment Tour — wind through preserved siege lines, redoubts, and artillery positions, with interpretive waysides at each stop. The site of Redoubt 10, which Alexander Hamilton led American forces to capture in a critical nighttime assault on October 14, 1781, is among the most historically charged locations along the tour. Adjacent Yorktown, the small colonial town, contains the Yorktown Victory Monument, the Nelson House — a colonial home damaged by artillery fire during the siege — and the Colonial National Cemetery. The Colonial Parkway, a scenic NPS-managed drive, connects Yorktown to Jamestown Settlement and Colonial Williamsburg to form Virginia's Historic Triangle, one of the most historically dense areas in the United States. A single visit pairing Yorktown Battlefield with the short Colonial Parkway drive is a natural itinerary.