Cornwallis

After the exhausting battle in the Carolinas, Cornwallis chose to move the fight to Virginia, where he met up with reinforcements. *First he tried to capture the divisions led by Lafayette and von Steuben. When that failed, Cornwallis made a fateful mistake. He led his army of 7,500 onto the peninsula between the James and York rivers. *He camped at Yorktown, a few miles from the original English settlement of Jamestown. Cornwallis planned to fortify Yorktown, take Virginia, and then move north to join Clinton’s forces.