Now at last Washington felt that he had the enemy's army within his grasp.

Sixteen thousand American and French troops were brought down from the North to furnish the fighting arm he required.
Yorktown lay on the south shore of the York River, an estuary of Chesapeake Bay.

On the opposite side the little town of Gloucester projected into the river.

In Yorktown itself the English had thrown up two redoubts and had drawn some lines of wall.

The French kept up an unremitting cannonade, but it became evident that the redoubts must be taken in order to subdue the place.