The battle of Yorktown. 1781.
Rather than copy and paste Hamilton lyrics, I promise to show you the beautiful historical quaint-ness of Yorktown.
I grew up outside of DC, and we'd frequently drive down to visit with our cousins and family — which meant plenty of trips to Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown.
But I don't think we ever made it to Yorktown, and after high school it was probably listening to Hamilton that I remembered how important this town is to the American Revolution.
We ran out of time to drive around the battlefield, but the area looked beautiful and would be well worth a drive through!
(If you're lucky, you'll see some gazelle-like deer hopping around and across the road — dangerous, but fascinating.)
You start at the visitor's center, which has a small museum and brief video to get you up to speed on how the victory at Yorktown came to be.
We walked out of the intro movie and right into the beginning of a tour, led by a reenactor.
Posing as Governor William Nelson, our tour guide brought us down a short path to the historical remains of the town — sharing the political, social, and economical climate of Yorktown before the war.
Yorktown had a large tobacco industry, and locals soon fell out of favor with the British government when they began selling tobacco to free merchants (pirates) rather than solely going through the British trade routine.
Fast forward to 1781 — the British had been doing well against the Americans until General Clinton left Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis in command of Yorktown.
Between the persistent closing in of the American troops from both land and sea, and the failed attempt of British evacuation across a channel, the British finally had to surrender — leading to the American victory.
Here, the Victory Monument stands tall above the town and is probably visible from the mouth of the bay that leads into Yorktown — a constant reminder of our American victory.
It took a century from the victory at Yorktown for the monument to be approved and construction to begin.
Homes in historic Yorktown.
Customs House of Yorktown, an important place for the busy port of Yorktown.
Coffee and Tea shop.
For a long waiting period, since the monument's completion it has made an impression on visitors and is an ever-visible reminder of the important historical moment that ended the Revolutionary War.