In 1781, after six years of fighting, the American Revolution came to a dramatic conclusion.

One of the two major British armies in the conflict found themselves trapped on a peninsula near Yorktown, Virginia.

A combination of American and French forces laid

seats to the British at Yorktown in what turned out to be the war's final battle.

Learn more about the Battle of Yorktown and how it clinched American independence on this episode of

Everything Everywhere Daily. If you could have given odds at the start of the American Revolution, I wouldn't have given the Americans less than a 10% chance of gaining independence.

The British had a better trained and equipped army, they had more experienced officers, they had the world's most powerful Navy, and they had way more money. more experience and most of all they were basically broke.

Their biggest asset was having home field advantage in a large distance between

themselves in Britain.

Despite some initial success at the start of the war at the siege of Boston, things did not go well for the Americans after that.

The Battle of Long Island was an almost complete disaster that would have ended the entire revolution

just a month after the Declaration of Independence.

After the Battle of Long Island, Washington, at the behest of General Nathaniel Green,

adopted a Fabian strategy of playing defense and trying not to lose.

And here I'll refer you back to my episode on the Fabian strategy.

Washington for the most part avoided any large confrontations with the British that he couldn't

win, and this went on for several years. By the summer of 1781 the situation on the ground

had changed considerably. For starters, the British Army began campaigning in the South.

For the most part, the fighting in the war up until this point had been in the North.

The head of the British forces in the South, Lord Charles Cornwallis, had captured the cities and perhaps most importantly the ports of Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina.

After his victories at Charleston and Savannah, he began pursuing General Nathaniel Green, who always

managed to stay one step ahead.

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