General Lord Cornwallis Case Study

Compare the principle antagonists (Operational/Tactical) General Lord Cornwallis has 8,500 soldiers, the men was composed mainly of two groups. 4,600 men were in the various units of the British army, mainly infantry, but with small groups of dragoons and artillerymen, the dragoons were attached to his headquarters. There were eight battalions of British foot regiments in the town, and elements of twelve others. All the men in Cornwallis army was not all from Britain. Some of the soldiers were recruited into all the regiments in America, the British army never told about the origins of its military soldiers. Some of the soldiers came from other European states, and the British recruits came from all parts of the British Isles. There were also

As the war continued, many Continental soldiers went without good shoes or boots, even in winter. This lack of clothing and supplies contributed to the army’s tragic noncombat death toll. Modern historians estimate that eight times the number of Americans died of deprivation and disease in the Revolutionary War as died in combat.

Spain’s involvement began before the American Declaration of Independence. In May 1776, French King Louis XVI directed that the Continental Army be given one million livres in munitions and supplies through a fictitious firm, Rodrigues Hortalez & Co. Informed of the French gift, Charles III of Spain matched it with another million, also funneled to the colonies through the dummy firm. The two Catholic Bourbon monarchs on the French and Spanish thrones continued to assist the American Revolution, more to divert British resources than from a desire to aid the revolutionary

Domingue (the then-French colony that is now Haiti) for the Chesapeake Bay, just as Cornwallis chose Yorktown, at the mouth of the Chesapeake, as his base. Washington realized that it was time to act. He ordered Marquis de Lafayette and an American army of 5,000 troops to block Cornwallis’ escape from Yorktown by land while the French naval fleet blocked the British escape by sea. By September 28, Washington had completely encircled Cornwallis and Yorktown with the combined forces of Continental and French troops. After three weeks of non-stop bombardment, both day and night, from cannon and artillery, Cornwallis surrendered to Washington in the field at Yorktown on October 17, 1781, effectively ending the War for