History of Yorktown

Nine buildings, including the circa-1730 Nelson House, still survive from this period, as well as many of the earthworks dug by the besieging American and French forces.

During the 1862 Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War (1861–1865), the town was captured from the Confederacy following the Siege and Battle of Yorktown and was then used as a base by the Union Army of the Potomac under General George B. McClellan.

The Yorktown Victory Monument – commemorating the victory, the alliance with France that brought it about and the resulting peace with England – is located just outside the current town. Designed by New York architect Richard Morris Hunt, the monument was originally topped by a figure of victory sculpted by John Quincy Adams Ward, but that figure was destroyed by lightning in 1942. It was replaced by a figure of Liberty by Oskar J. W. Hansen in 1957. A memorial to the French war dead of the Yorktown campaign is being planned for construction at the French cemetery on the site of the battle