Consider this …
After defeating the Los Angeles Rams, your high school football team, a has gone on to whip the Buffalo Bills in the Super Bowl!
What?!!!
Think that sounds preposterous? Consider another set of opponents where the odds were even more outrageous. That would be when the rag-tag army of the American Colonies beat the armed forces of mighty England. That war lasted eight years and pitted an army of poorly fed, poorly clothed and ill-equipped citizens against the biggest, best-equipped and most powerful military in the whole world. It was the deadliest force in the known universe at that time.
In the late summer and early fall of 1781, the polished and professional British Military were forced to surrender to a bunch of guys with hunting muskets and shotguns at Yorktown, Virginia. They had critically important help from French army and naval officers but they also had some intrepid leaders of their own, including George Washington, the Vince Lombardy of the Revolution; a guy who kept on winning no matter what he was up against.
The British had set up a line of small forts (called redoubts), connected by trenches in front of their main positions. If you wanted to whip the main force, you’d have to bust through that line by taking down those forts.
On the night of October 14, 400 French troops stormed Redoubt 9 and 400 Americans stormed Redoubt 10, capturing both in less than 30 minutes. Nine American soldiers and 15 French were killed in this action. Among those heroically storming Redoubt 10 were Col. John Laurens and Col. Alexander Hamilton, both aides de camp of Washington.
Cornwallis saw that the situation had become hopeless. On the morning of October 17, he sent out a British drummer and an officer with a white flag to request negotiations. Washington responded:
“Your Lordship will be pleased to signify your determination either to accept or to reject the proposals now offered, in the course of two hours from the delivery of this letter, that Commissioners may be appointed to digest the Articles of Capitulation, or a renewal of hostilities may take place. I have the honor to be My Lord Your Lordship’s most obedient and humble servant.
Gen. Geo. Washington
General Cornwallis called a meeting of his officers and said if any three of them agreed to it he would lead them out in a direct, frontal attack to pierce the Allied line and escape. Not a single one of them spoke in agreement. On October 19, 1781, Articles of Capitulation were signed, in which the British admitted defeat.
Poor old Cornwallis, was so humiliated to suffer defeat at the hands of unprofessional Americans and their French ally that he played sick to avoid marching out with his troops. He stayed in his tent and sent his deputy, General Charles O’Hara, out there instead.
Washington recognized the snub and directed O’Hara to Major General Benjamin Lincoln who accepted Cornwallis’ sword and then handed it back to him. It was classic one-upmanship seasoned by a pinch of humor.
And Now the Irony
Pictured (L to R) are General Cornwallis, American Col. John Laurens and his father, Henry Laurens, one of America’s founding fathers, who at the time of surrender was being held prisoner in the Tower of London.
After Cornwallis stayed in his tent during his humiliation, General Washington assigned aide, Col. John Laurens, to negotiate the terms of surrender. Everybody was aware that Cornwallis held the title of Constable of the Tower of London and that John Laurens’ father, Henry Laurens, President of the Continental Congress, was, therefore, ostensibly his prisoner.
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