"Yorktown" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of war, my boy, as I have, you would not be so eager for it. God forbid it should deluge this frontier with blood; but if it do, old as I am, I will shoulder the old Brown Bess there above the fireplace that your grandfather bore at Brandywine and Yorktown." ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... he received news of Lord Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown, on October 19, 1781. He pushed on his lines, and arriving in Wilmington he found that Major Craig had taken ship and was flying from the land he had so ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... camp, chafing with impatience and indignation as the long months wore away, and the thousands of graves about Washington, filled by disease and inaction, made "all quiet along the Potomac." He went down to Yorktown; was in the sweat and fury of the seven days' fight; away in the far South, where fever and pestilence stood guard to seize those who were spared by the bullet and bayonet; and on many a field well lost or won. Through it all marching or fighting, sick, wounded thrice and again; praised, ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... ever had the honor of enrolling the name of Washington among its members was the Friendly Knights of St. Patrick. It is an incident worthy of remark that at Yorktown it was a Celt, General O'Hara, who gave to America the symbol of England's final defeat. When the war of the Revolution was ended the Celt laid aside the sword to engage in the arts of peace and build up the industries ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... Emperor—but was it a good thing for them?' 'I have sometimes wondered,' he added, 'what would have happened to us if Gates, or—what was at one time, as you know, quite on the cards—Benedict Arnold, instead of George Washington, had commanded the armies of the colonies successfully down to the end at Yorktown.' ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... fathers went through the gloom of that terrible time, and still fought on. Brave men wrote grand words, cheering the despondent, brave men did brave deeds, the rich man gave his wealth, the poor man gave his life, until at last, by the victory of Yorktown, the old banner won its place in the air, and ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... the progress of the war. In 1781 General Greene drove the British from the Southern States. In October of the same year General Washington compelled Lord Cornwallis to surrender his army, at Yorktown, in Virginia. This was the last great event of the Revolutionary contest. King George and his ministers perceived that all the might of England could not compel America to renew her allegiance to ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... an officer of marked gallantry and conduct, who distinguished himself on several occasions, as captain, during the War of 1778, and as admiral during the wars of the French Revolution. He was brother to Lord Cornwallis, who surrendered at Yorktown, in 1781. ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... a prince, a duke, an archbishop, an author of celebrity, a Tom Hughes, a Lord Houghton, a Dean Stanley, or some descendant of our French allies at Yorktown, comes on a visit to our country, one of the most satisfactory forms of entertainment that we can offer to him is a morning reception. At an informal matin,e we may bring to meet him such authors, artists, clergymen, lawyers, editors, statesmen, rich and public-spirited citizens, ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... throughout the remainder of the Revolution, and it was present at the surrender of Burgoyne and the fall of Yorktown. But when Vermont and Kentucky were admitted as states, the flag was changed, so there were fifteen stars and fifteen stripes, like this: [Indicate ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... slinging their hammocks on the gun-decks beside the whalemen of Nantucket. These fishermen and coastwise sailors fought on the land as well and followed the drums of Washington's armies until the final scene at Yorktown. Gloucester and Marblehead were filled with widows and orphans, and half their men-folk were dead ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... cheered the despairing men and they stood by him. We were saved at last because help came in time. Lord Cornwallis had laid the South in ashes, and camped at Yorktown, his army of veterans laden with spoils. He was only waiting for the transports from New York to take his victorious men North, join the army there and end the ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... of his attempt to do likewise. But the spirit of independence, without waiting for the consent of any other nation, shone forth like a plumed knight or a mighty gladiator on the 19th day of October, 1781, at Yorktown, when the British gave up their swords and surrendered to the liberty loving fathers of America. Do you think Cornwallis would have surrendered to Washington if the Colonial Congress had declared that they would promote independence by international ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... treatment. No, sir-ee; on the contrary, he was inspired with renewed zeal and energy; and I can put into the mouth of my hero the immortal words which Milton spoke to the Duke of Wellington, at the siege of Yorktown: ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... of Yorktown, in America, we had, during one night, erected a battery, with intent to blow up a place which, according to the report of our spies, was your magazine of ammunition, etc. We had not time to finish it ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... volunteer, and served through the Revolution, participating in many of the greatest victories won by the Americans, sharing the worst hardships of the war with his fellow patriots, and laying down his arms only after Cornwallis had surrendered his sword at Yorktown. ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... 1781, Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. This event was received in Kentucky, as in other parts of the country, with great joy. The power of Britain was supposed to be broken, or at least so much crippled, that they would not be in a condition to ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... Lightning and electricity were identified by Franklin. 3. A complete success or an entire failure was anticipated. 4. Good men and bad men are found in all communities. 5. Vapors rise from the ocean and fall upon the land. 6. The Revolutionary war began at Lexington and ended at Yorktown. 7. Alas! all hope has fled. 8. Ah! I am surprised at the news. 9. Oh! we shall certainly drown. 10. Pshaw! you are dreaming. 11. Hurrah! ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... years old. At the breaking out of the war of the Revolution, after the battles of Concord and Lexington, he went with a Connecticut company to join the Continental army, and was present at the battle of Bunker Hill. He served until the fall of Yorktown, or through the entire Revolutionary war. He must, however, have been on furlough part of the time—as I believe most of the soldiers of that period were—for he married in Connecticut during the war, had two children, and was a widower at the close. Soon after this he emigrated ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... following a retreating foe, the cavalry is sent in the advance, supported by some infantry and horse artillery, to harass the rear guard, and, if practicable, delay the retreat until the main army can come up. This was the case in the peninsula campaign, from Yorktown to the Chickahominy. Again, the exact position of the enemy may not be known, or he may have large bodies in different places, so that his intentions cannot be surmised. It is then necessary to scatter the army so as to cover a number of threatened ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a knowledge of the elements, and among these should be American history. What if children cannot pronounce the names of all the cities in Siberia? Teach them to speak intelligently of Lexington, Bunker Hill and Yorktown. Hang the walls of the school-room with pictures of great Americans. Let incidents from their lives be used as illustrations of moral lessons. Explain the principles and form of our government. Dwell upon the extent of its domain and ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 6, June, 1889 • Various
... insensibility to feelings inspired by the contemplation of such events. But I would ask, does the recollection of Bunker's Hill, Saratoga, and Yorktown, afford no pleasure? Every act of noble sacrifice of the country, every instance of patriotic devotion to her cause, has its beneficial influence. A nation's character is the sum of its splendid deeds; they constitute one common patrimony, the country's ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... he was on "the Peninsula" with Magruder, guarding Virginia on the east against the first attack. His camp was first at Yorktown and then on Jamestown Island, the honor having been assigned his battery of guarding the oldest cradle of the race on this continent. It was at "Little Bethel" that his guns were first trained on the enemy, and that the battery first saw what they had to do, and from ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... of the case, the Americans got much more than the lion's share of the spoils, while, even in their own eyes, they seemed to have gained honour and glory in the same proportion. The last real campaign was fought in 1781 and ended with the British surrender at Yorktown. From that time on peace was in the air. The unfortunate ministry, now on the eve of political defeat at home, were sick of civil war and only too anxious for a chance of uniting all parties against the foreign foes. But they had first to settle with ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... steamer then continued on her course, and landed her troops in Cheseman's Creek, an indentation of the peninsula between the York and James Rivers. After lying in camp a few days, they marched again, and Tom learned that the regiment was before Yorktown, which had been strongly fortified by the rebels to resist the advance of the ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... the tansy figures is what your sister wants me to tell you about. My mother, your grandmother, was a widow. I never saw my own father, for I was born while he was away fighting in the battles of the Revolution and he never returned; he was killed at Yorktown. When I was about ten years old my mother had an offer of marriage from a farmer in Medway who had lost his wife; his children had grown up, married and settled excepting one son twenty years old. It was a matter of convenience on both sides; my mother needed a ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... four days that was all he had with him to eat or drink. He says he felt fine and did his work better than when he had been where the food was palatable and he had eaten heartily. Of course he swears by the Extract and never takes a trip now without taking a good supply with him.—Mrs. H. L., Yorktown Heights, Westchester ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... of her engines had been made. And so she started down the river on her trial trip, but intending, nevertheless, to do battle with the strongest ships of the United States navy. Accompanying her were four small Confederate gunboats,—the "Beaufort," the "Yorktown," the "Jamestown," and the "Teaser." Soon rounding out into Hampton Roads, the little squadron caught sight of the Northern fleet at anchor, and made for them. An officer on the "Congress" thus tells the story ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... she never recovered. As Freeman, late professor of history at Oxford, said in one of his lectures: "In the blow by the Teutoburg wood was the germ of the Declaration of Independence, the germ of the surrender of Yorktown." Arminius was our first Washington, "haud dubie liberator," as Tacitus calls him,—the savior ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... go, restored, or for the first time created, feelings of friendliness between the Belgians and the Dutch. There are to be found Belgian statesmen who regret the proclamation of Belgian independence. When in 1881 the Americans celebrated at Yorktown the centenary of British defeat, they went out of their way to display their goodwill towards Great Britain. Plaudits and toasts, it may be said, prove nothing except the existence of a sentiment ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... were making to crush him, sent message after message to New York to ask for aid from the commander-in-chief, and received assurances from him that he would at once sail with 4000 troops to join him. Accordingly, in obedience to his orders, Lord Cornwallis fortified himself at Yorktown. ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... uneventful voyage of six weeks, I beheld again my native shores in the low spits of the Virginia capes. The sand was very hot and white, and the waters of the Chesapeake rolled like oil under the July sun. We were all day getting over to Yorktown, the ship's destination. A schooner was sailing for Annapolis early the next morning, and I barely had time to get off my baggage and catch her. We went up the bay with a fresh wind astern, which died ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... woman-hater, he could be a delightful companion when once his confidence was gained; and as we drifted in the mild spring weather through the long reaches between the passes he talked of Trenton and Brandywine and Yorktown. There was more than one bond of sympathy between us, for he worshipped Washington, detested the French party, and had a hatred for "filthy Democrats" second to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... The moment was among the darkest England has ever passed through. We were engaged in a death-struggle against France, Spain, and the American colonies combined. Cornwallis had just repeated at Yorktown the humiliating surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga. Elliot lay locked in Gibraltar. Ireland was growing restive and menacing on one side, and the Northern powers of Europe on the other—the Armed Neutrality, as they were called—sat ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... shall send through the past, In the trenches of Yorktown to waken the slain; While the sod of King's Mountain shall heave at the blast, And give up its ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... voyage,—and confused Battista utterly by trying to make him remember something about Palinuro, of whom he had never heard. It was much as I afterwards asked my negro waiter at Fort Monroe about General Washington at Yorktown. "Never heard of him, sir,—was he in the Regular army?" So Battista thought Palinuro must have fished in the Italian fleet, with which the Sicilian boatmen were not well acquainted. Messina made no objections to us. Perhaps, if the sloop of war ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... John G., opposes McClellan's plan of campaign, see vol. i.; on impossibility of taking Yorktown, see vol. ii. ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... himself. It was sovereignty from within which responded to the alarm of Paul Revere on that April night, and which went marching, gun in hand, against sovereignty from without, wherever it was found on earth. It only paused at Concord, or Yorktown, then marched on to Paris, to London, to Moscow, to Pekin. Against it the powers of privilege and the forces of despotism could not prevail. Superstition and sham cannot stand before intelligence and reality. The light that first broke over ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... prisoners, who had been sent in crowds to the murderous tribunal, while he had been insensible of their or his own danger." This was probably the money (L200) loaned by Paine to General O'Hara (who figured at the Yorktown surrender) ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... earliest prey. Enemies to us, they are twice enemies to themselves. They are driven helplessly on, and will be so until we slay the tyrant that wrings from them their evil services. During that fatal month's siesta at Yorktown, the country was horror-stricken to hear that the enemy were forcing negroes at the point of the bayonet to work those pieces of ordnance from which the whites, in terror of our sharpshooters, had fled away. But behind ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... transportation, ammunition, and Woodbury's brigade, under your orders, is not, and will not be, interfered with. You now have over one hundred thousand troops with you, independent of General Wool's command. I think you better break the enemy's line from Yorktown to Warwick River at once. This will probably use time ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... book, or it may be a newspaper, since these are swarming every where at the present time, and read that a person has just deceased, who was at Yorktown, in Virginia, during the whole siege, in the American revolution. I am supposing here that you have already learned where Yorktown is; for geography, to some extent at least, should precede history; but if not, I would let it pass for the moment, since we cannot do every thing at once, and proceed to inquire about the siege, and revolution. If you have any books whatever, on history, within your reach, ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... At Yorktown, that city of eld, we landed to take in a cargo of freight, not neglecting the usual store of oysters, of which we had at supper a sumptuous feast and it was from no fickle epicurean fancy that all pronounced these delicious bivalves the finest in the world, for, certainly, never before or ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... "Peggy Owen at Yorktown" details how Peggy goes to Virginia to nurse a cousin, who is wounded and a prisoner. The town is captured by the British under Benedict Arnold, the traitor, and Peggy is led to believe that he has induced ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... directed to rally on Stoneman, who was thus left with five hundred men of Buford's reserve, or else to push through to Gloucester Point, or Yorktown, as ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... him, he was at the Rip Raps, bemoaning his isolation, and the butt of our soldiers there, who charged him with being a "Secesh," and confounded him by gravely asserting that they were such themselves and had seen him with the "Secesh" at Yorktown. This was the single goat ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... Barnard says,—"They were used by the Quartermaster's department in discharging transports, were precisely what was needed for the disembarkation of General Franklin's division, constituted a portion of the numerous bridges that were built over Wormley Creek during the siege of Yorktown, and were of the highest use in the Chickahominy; while over the Lower Chickahominy, some seventy-five thousand men, some three hundred pieces of artillery, and the enormous baggage-trains of the army, passed over a bridge of the extraordinary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... Cornwallis, the newly appointed governor and captain-general of Nova Scotia. He was a young officer of thirty-six, twin-brother of the Rev. Frederick Cornwallis, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and uncle of the more famous Lord Cornwallis who surrendered at Yorktown thirty-two years later. With the colonists came many officers and disbanded soldiers; came, also, the soldiers of the garrison which had occupied Louisbourg before the peace; for the new settlement, named Halifax in honour of the president of the Lords of ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty
... some Walloon from Spotswood's settlement on the Rapidan, or the keener countenances of Frenchmen from Monacan-Town. The armorer from the Magazine elbowed a great proprietor from the Eastern shore, while a famous guide and hunter, long and lean and brown, described to a magnate of Yorktown a buffalo capture in the far west, twenty leagues beyond the falls. Masters and scholars from William and Mary were there, with rangers, traders, sailors ashore, small planters, merchants, loquacious ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... advance being, in 1862, not upon Manassas, but on Yorktown, filled the less enthusiastic of his henchmen with consternation. To the general eye he seemed to have pitched on the very point where the enemy wanted to meet with all the gain in their favor. This direct route to Richmond they ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... the Potomac at Edwards' Ferry (Loudoun County), where the river was broad but shallow, near the scene of Evan's victory over the Federals in the previous October, and where Wayne had crossed his Pennsylvania brigade in marching to the field of Yorktown, in 1781.] ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... is difficult to put into more graphic language the symptoms of an era just ripe for revolution. If frivolous himself, Walpole can condemn the frivolity of others. 'Can one repeat common news with indifference,' he asks, just after the surrender of Yorktown, 'while our shame is writing for future history by the pens of all our numerous enemies? When did England see two whole armies lay down their arms and surrender themselves prisoners?... These are thoughts I cannot stifle at the moment ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Northern Virginia steadily confronted it, ever ready to receive any attack. At Cold Harbour they paused, facing each other, and General Grant, having received sixteen thousand men from Butler by way of Yorktown on June 1st, made an attack, but found our lines immovable. In ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... cock-eyed Massachusetts politician, one Ben Butler, a fellow of energy though, broke into the Yorktown country, but Magruder thrashed him at Big Bethel. All those things, though, Harry, are just whiffs of rain before the big storm. We're threatening Washington here with our main army, and here is where they will have to meet us. Lincoln has put General ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... persons to desist from unlawful combinations to obstruct the operations of the laws, and charged all courts, magistrates, and officers with their enforcement. There was no mistaking Hamilton's intention to enforce the law. Prosecutions in the Circuit Court, held at Yorktown in October, were ordered against the Pittsburgh offenders, but no proof could be ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... were landed. In vain strove the British to pass: Rochambeau our armies commanded, Our ships they were led by De Grasse. Morbleu! How I rattled the drumsticks The day we march'd into Yorktown; Ten thousand of beef-eating British Their weapons ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... such, strangely enough was ordered to report to Major General Benjamin F. Butler, fresh from the life of a successful lawyer, then in command at Fortress Monroe, where he arrived on the 1st of June, 1861. While there he conducted several important reconnaissances in the direction of Yorktown and Big Bethel, and thus became acquainted with a region in which he was afterwards to play a most important part. His services lasted something less than two months, and became still more notable from the fact that they made ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... you. Walter, beware! scorn not the gathering throng It suffers, yet it may not suffer wrong, It suffers, yet it cannot suffer Long. And if you goad it these grey rules to break, For a few pence, see that you do not wake Death and the splendour of the scarlet cap, Boston and Valmy, Yorktown and Jemmappes, Freedom in arms, the riding and the routing, The thunder of the captains and the shouting, All that lost riot that you did not share—And when that riot comes—you will ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... we here in America set up a great index hand with the words "TO FRANCE." To France, land of suffering humanity, in whose devastated fields again must be saved the same principles for which Americans fought at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga, at Yorktown, at Gettysburg and in the Wilderness; to France, where the fate of the world is still pending; to France, which has again checked the Huns of the modern world as it did those of the ancient; to France, the manhood of this nation must now be directed, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... the George Washington Memorial Parkway be extended from Mount Vernon to Yorktown as the beginning of a system of scenic roads and parkways in ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... she evinces a strong love for the cause of the colonies, while her uncle and his family are ardent adherents of the King. Her many deeds of heroism carry her to Philadelphia during its occupancy by the British, thence to Valley Forge, the Wyoming massacre, and finally to the surrender at Yorktown. ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... proud generals and troops of Britain confident of victory, but saved from annihilation by his inborn fearlessness and superiority, when death was all around him and dismay everywhere in Braddock's disastrous fight—their silent homage crowning the head of their deliverer; his triumphant sword at Yorktown put the crowning hand to the immortal work—the work that founded this great nation; yet we could never infer from a word or hint in the course of these letters, from first to last, that he had anything to do with the work, except as the ...
— Washington in Domestic Life • Richard Rush
... your people have forgotten them. Listen: 'From sire to son has descended the love of the Union in our hearts, as in our history are mingled the names of Concord and Camden, of Yorktown and Saratoga, of New Orleans and Bunker Hill. Together they form a monument to the common glory of our common country. Where is the Southern man who would wish that monument less by one Northern name that constitutes the mass? Who, standing on the ground made sacred by the blood of Warren, ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... distressed him. The sad fortune of his second daughter, Mary, was another source of grief. She had married Benjamin Lincoln, eldest son of General Lincoln, who received the sword of General Cornwallis at the surrender of Yorktown,—a young lawyer of considerable promise; but he ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... Ball's Bluff Yorktown West Point Seven Pines Fair Oaks Peach Orchard Savages Station White Oak Swamp Glendale Malvern Hill Mine Run Wilderness ...
— Ball's Bluff - An Episode and its Consequences to some of us • Charles Lawrence Peirson
... Washington's own personal doings and feelings. Of the latter the diaries reveal little. Washington was an objective man, above all in his papers. He sets down what happens and says little about causes, motives or mental impressions. When on his way to Yorktown to capture Cornwallis he visited his home for the first time in six weary years, yet merely recorded: "I reached my own Seat at Mount Vernon (distant 120 Miles from the Hd. of Elk) where I staid till ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... Franklin's lodgings in Passy to spread the good news, and in such mad haste that he upset his carriage and dislocated his arm. And when we next look out from the path we see the British soldiers passing in surrender between two lines drawn up at Yorktown, the American soldiers on one side with Washington at their head, and on the other the French soldiers under ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... fallen upon the shoulders of Mr. Coudert, for then he might have stood some chance of being translated. [Laughter.] A few years ago distinguished military men from abroad came here to participate in the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the surrender of Yorktown by Lord Cornwallis. They were invited here by the Government, the descendants of all distinguished foreigners, to participate in that historical event, except the descendants of Lord Cornwallis. [Laughter.] And if ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... will between our own Government and that of Great Britain was never more marked than at present. In recognition of this pleasing fact I directed, on the occasion of the late centennial celebration at Yorktown, that a salute be ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the one hundredth anniversary of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, on invitation of the United States ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... grim-looking scar on the left side of my father's face was so particularly becoming. The battle was fought in June 1780, and my parents were married in the autumn of the same year. My father did not go to sea again until after my birth, which took place the very day that Cornwallis capitulated at Yorktown. These combined events set the young sailor in motion, for he felt he had a family to provide for, and he wished to make one more mark on the enemy in return for the beauty-spot his wife so gloried in. ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... are the remnant of many a well-fought field. You bring with you marks of honor from Trenton and Monmouth, from Yorktown, Camden, Bennington, and Saratoga. VETERANS OF HALF A CENTURY! when in your youthful days you put every thing at hazard in your country's cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... I had recovered all my old vigour, and had become restless through inaction. Nobody could say when the Eleventh would come. The troops, as they landed, found roomy locations for their camps, for the rebels were far off at Yorktown, and with only flying parties of cavalry patrolling the country up to our pickets. I had no duty to do; but for the Doctor's company time would have been ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... violated by both parties, it was about to be formally broken. Neither of the plenipotentiaries who signed the treaty was skilled in diplomacy. Joseph Bonaparte acted for his brother; England was represented by Lord Cornwallis, who twenty years before had surrendered the British army at Yorktown. The wits of London described him afterwards as a general who could neither conduct a war nor conclude ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... ended with equal failure, had his country not met that foreign aid for which they honourably begged. It is useless to remark that he would undoubtedly have failed, if after the glorious battle of Yorktown he had met a fresh enemy of more than two hundred thousand men, such as we met, and had been forsaken in that new struggle by all the world. It is useless to remark that success should not be the only test of virtue on earth, and fortune should not change the devotion of ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... the government of the Church must of need be secured. Nor can we greatly wonder if what no entreaties had been able to obtain while the colonies were a part of the British Empire, seemed now to many an almost hopeless undertaking. The surrender at Yorktown in 1781 was to many American churchmen the death-blow to their hopes for an American Episcopate. There were men enough to see the difficulties and discouragements, to talk and write and speculate about them; but where should those men be found who would grapple with them, and by grappling ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... kings, while over it brooded in solemn wonder the face of John Laurens, whose diplomatic genius at the court of France won millions of gold for our tottering cause, and sent a French fleet and army into the Chesapeake to entrap Cornwallis at Yorktown. ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... repeated instances the enemy's batteries have been effectually kept silent by the aid of this weapon, till counter-works could be established, which could by no possibility have been constructed but for such assistance. During the siege of Yorktown, especially, the fact is historical that the Confederates acquired such a dread of these weapons that they forced their negroes to the work of serving the guns, which they did not dare attempt themselves, and our men were reluctantly compelled, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... General Otis decided that something must be done at once to relieve them. A rescuing party was formed and placed aboard the "Yorktown," which carried them around the southern point of Luzon and then northward to the mouth of ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... rear took no part in the battle. The fleets separated without decisive result, and the British, after cruising a few days irresolutely, gave up and returned to New York. The other French squadron had meanwhile arrived, and the allied troops had come down the Chesapeake. Cornwallis, shut up in Yorktown by overwhelming forces, defended himself until October 17, and then surrendered with 8,000 men to the man who had beaten him years before at Trenton and Princeton. Clinton, aware at last of his danger, sailed with ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... quite unworkable Constitution of 1782, which had been extorted from England's weakness when Ireland was denuded of regular troops, and at the mercy of a Volunteer National Guard, when Cornwallis had just surrendered at Yorktown, and Spain and France were once more leagued with half Europe for the ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... At Yorktown she was ordered to work on a battery, which she did right faithfully. Among her comrades, Deborah's young and jaunty appearance won for her the sobriquet "blooming boy." She was a great favourite in the ranks. She shirked nothing, and did duty sometimes as a common soldier and sometimes ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... William Gill, entered the service at the beginning of the war, and became connected with the staff of General Washington. He served in the capacity of aid to the Commander-in-chief through the war, and was with him at the surrender of Cornwallis, at Yorktown. From this point he returned to his family, in Mecklenburg, Va., who had not heard from him in ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... and his heart was filled with lasting gratitude. When the campaign opened in the spring, the young man was with his regiment near Yorktown, Virginia. They were ordered to attack a fort, and he fell at the ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... go tell Virginia, when she needed a sword I found one. Now, I need bread." The worn-out old soldier lived only a little while longer, and in 1818 died and was buried at Locust Grove, Ky. It has been said that a French officer who met Clark at Yorktown, on his return to France, said to the king: "Sire, there are two Washingtons in America." "What do you mean?" said the king. "I mean," said the officer, "that there is Washington whom the world knows; ...
— The story of Kentucky • Rice S. Eubank
... and proclaiming that if it doesn't conduct itself more to John Bull's liking, "it will soon feel the iron hand beneath the velvet glove." Turn loose your "iron hand," you old he-bawd—and you'll soon stick it further under your own coat-tails than you did at Yorktown. . . . ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... from an old bent neighbor of ninety years. It brought a cloud to his brow. All day and into the night the thought persisted and its shadow chilled the hours of his departure. James Nelson was his name, of the ancient family of the Nelsons of Yorktown. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... Peninsula was slow. He had not informed himself correctly as to the geography; he found the enemy not so unprepared as he had supposed; he wasted, it is agreed, a month in regular approaches to their thinly-manned fortifications at Yorktown, when he might have carried them by assault. He was soon confronted by Joseph Johnston, and he seems both to have exaggerated Johnston's numbers again and to have been unprepared for his movements. The Administration ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... contribution in a disguised hand, slyly put it into the editorial box, and the next day disguised his pleasure while setting it up himself. The article was a description of a Fourth of July celebration in Skowhegan. The spectacle of the day was a representation of the battle of Yorktown, with G. Washington and General Horace Cornwallis in character. The article pleased Mr. Shillaber, and Mr. Browne, afterwards speaking of it, said: "I went to the theatre that evening, had a good time of it, and thought I was the ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... that I, Abraham Lincoln. President of the United States, do hereby proclaim that the ports of Richmond, Tappahannock, Cherrystone, Yorktown, and Petersburg, in Virginia; of Camden (Elizabeth City), Edenton, Plymouth, Washington, Newbern, Ocracoke, and Wilmington in North Carolina; of Charleston, Georgetown, and Beaufort, in South Carolina; ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... toleration and charity in religion? Was the work of Washington and Jefferson and Hamilton to go down in ruin and nothingness? While the old world, with her tyrannies, scoffed at the failure of the Republic, men thought of Bunker Hill and Valley Forge and Yorktown. They thought of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They recalled the tribute of one of the greatest of English statesmen, who characterized the American Constitution as "the greatest political instrument ever struck off by ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... of the Army of the Potomac were to the battle field of Bull Run and the retreat. In 1862, after a march of fifteen miles to Fairfax Court House and returning, the army was transferred to Fortress Monroe and moved to Yorktown, where some weeks were passed in the trenches; it then proceeded up the Peninsula, and laid a month before Richmond; retreated to Harrison's Landing, and laid another month; returned to Fortress Monroe, and was shipped ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... During the seven dark years that followed, this town never wavered in its devotion to the cause of liberty, and was represented on many of the most important battle-fields, as well as at the surrender of Yorktown, which terminated the struggle for independence. Saturday, the 14th of July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was received. It was publicly read, for the first time on Massachusetts soil, from the porch ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... dreaming of what was in store for him as the King, sailed for Boston with his principal. They carried with them two millions and a half in silver,—a great help to Washington in the movement southward, which ended with the capitulation of Yorktown. While in Paris, Paine was again seized with the desire of invading England, incognito, with a pamphlet in his pocket, to open the eyes of the people. But Colonel Laurens thought no better of this scheme than General Greene, and brought ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... visible. Here, just above the water, defiantly floated the flag of the sunken Cumberland. There smoked the still-burning hull of the Congress. Here, up the bay, steamed the Merrimac, with two attendants, the Yorktown and the Patrick Henry. Yonder lay the great hull of the steam-frigate Minnesota, which had taken some part in the battle of the day before, but had unfortunately gone ashore on a mud-bank, from which the utmost efforts failed to force her off. Other ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris |
