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239th Anniversary of the Battle of Yorktown
“The Battle of Yorktown was the climax of the American Revolution and directly led to the independence of the United States of America. While others may have been larger and more dramatic, no battle in history has been more influential. From the days following their victory at Yorktown, Americans have steadily gained power and influence up to their present role as the world’s most prosperous nation and only military superpower.
“The idea that a group of poorly armed, loosely organized colonists would have the audacity to challenge the massive, experienced army and navy of their rulers seemed impossible when the revolution’s first shots rang out at Lexington and Concord in 1775. The rebels’ chances of success seemed even more remote when the American colonies formally declared their independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776.
“Despite the huge imbalance of power, the Americans understood that time was on their side. As long as George Washington and his army remained in the field, the newly declared republic survived. Washington did not have to defeat the British; he simply had to avoid having the British defeat him. The longer the war lasted, the greater the odds that the British would become involved in wars that threatened their own islands and that the British public would tire of the war and its costs.”
— Lt. Col. (Ret.) Michael Lee Lanning, The Battle 100, Page 1.
The battle itself was nothing short of tactical brilliance. The British managed to get trapped in Yorktown against the York River. The French had the British blockaded from the sea. 6,000 British defenders were pinned down by 8,000 American and 7,000 French soldiers. On October 9, 1781, the Americans and French began pounding the British with 52 cannons while they dug trenches towards the British defensive redoubts which fell on October 14, 1781. The Americans and French could now fire directly into Yorktown. The British asked for a cease-fire. Nope, not good enough. On October 18, 1781, the British unconditionally surrendered.
Cornwallis could not bear to surrender in person to the Americans, so he sent his Deputy, who offered his sword to the French Commander. The French Commander refused to accept it and gestured to the Americans. Washington refused to accept the sword himself and gestured for his Deputy to accept it.
While there were minor skirmishes, for all intents and purposes, the Revolutionary War was over. The embarrassment of the surrender brought down the British government. The example of the Americans help lead the French to have their own revolution. But most importantly, we were now an independent nation. The Battle of Yorktown was our ultimate victory in the Revolutionary War.
Published in General
To infinity and beyond!
Wonderful! I got chills watching it!
No, no you didn’t make the it’s/its mistake but, as Mark said, you might have been moving down that road.
Colleen, where have you been all my life? You’re hired. All you have to do is read all my Ricochet attempts at humor and explain them.
Oh no! I think that I have not made that error in decades. But thank you for your concern.
All kidding aside, I don’t think that you (or anyone who learned the standard schoolmarm’s punctuation of “its”) would ever regress and get it wrong.
Why? Because every occurrence of “it’s” and “its” in a text immediately focus the attention of all careful readers (and thus, all careful self-editors) on it. (Even when it’s spelled correctly, its appearance causes this unfortunate hiccup in the flow of ideas. That was two hiccups right there.)
Why is that? At first, I was going to say, “Because the spelling of “its” is quirky.”
But on review, I realized that it is not that at all. For example, “his” is a possessive pronoun spelled without an apostrophe. “Its” simply follows the rules. The reason “its” tempts the writer to sin is that the contraction for “it is” is a common word and a homonym. If there were a word “his’s” or “hers’s”, then we would make those two respective mistakes just as we do with “its”.
I think that as I get older I occasionally catch even my word-obsessed self getting it wrong, and only catching it in the self-edit phase. So now, even when I see it in print I ignore it. That is, unless you write two articles in short succession that make the same mistake ;-) Even then, I would normally follow my Private Message Policy on Suggested Edits. But in the last year or two, somehow you’ve gotten on my bad side and I made an exception and dinged you in public.
I’m glad you took it so graciously, but I promise never to do it again.
Never forget:
https://ricochet.com/690215/archives/its-a-shame/
Great post Gary. A great time in The history of the country. I’m praying that my young granddaughters can learn about this from people other than me. Unfortunately this is the type of history that could soon be erased.
Buck,
Yes, if Trump is defeated the chances are that the History of the Victory at Yorktown seeing the light of day is little or none. Perhaps Gary should consider that.
Regards,
Jim
I’ve been the skunk at the garden party, and your comments were very, very slight compared to some I have received, especially lately. It is such a relief to post on a subject other than that.
Every generation we face an invasion by a bunch of barbarians. We call them children. I so yearn for the return of the melting pot.
Gary,
It’s not the kids. It’s their teachers all the way up to the tenured variety at the top universities. In years past, a reasonable university administration would have checked this but that is gone too. The President’s office is now woke wonderland as well. They will erase Yorktown and every other piece of significant American History. To call them Orwellian is an understatement.
Regards,
Jim
I hope that you are wrong; I fear that you are right.
Anyone voting for Antifa or BLM (that would be Joe Biden) is making sure that this history will disappear.
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