the Chesapeake, and a French siege train arrived from Newport, Rhode Island, his position became untenable. Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington and the French commander the Comte de Rochambeau on October 19, 1781. Cornwallis reported this disaster to Clinton in a letter that opened: I have the mortification to inform Your Excellency that I have been forced to give up the posts of York and Gloucester and to surrender the troops under my command by capitulation, on the 19th instant, as prisoners of war to the combined forces of America. Consequences With the surrender at Yorktown, the full participation of French forces in that battle, and the resulting loss of Cornwallis's army, the British war effort ground to a halt. The sole remaining British army of any size remaining in America was that under Sir Henry Clinton in New York. Clinton, paralyzed by the defeat, made no further action and was replaced by Guy Carleton in 1782. Such a shocking reversal in fortune, coming as it had on the back of a rare naval defeat, served to increase the shift in British popular opinion against the war. The North Ministry collapsed, a peace-oriented government took power, and no further major operation on the American continent occurred for the rest of the war. While Saratoga had started the decline of British fortunes in the Revolution, Yorktown was its death knell. Heritage The Southern Campaign of the Revolution National Heritage Corridor was established in the National Heritage Area Act in 2022. The National Heritage Area will help preserve and promote tourism at several dozen historic sites along an 8-mile wide corridor in North Carolina and South Carolina. References Sources Bicheno, H: Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War, London, 2003 Boatner, Mark Mayo, III. Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. New York: McKay, 1966; revised 1974. . Buchanan, John, The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas (1999) Clement, R: "The World Turned Upside down At the Surrender of Yorktown", Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 363 (Jan. - Mar., 1979), pp. 66–67 Crow, Jeffrey J. and Larry E. Tise, eds. The Southern Experience in the American Revolution (1978) Evans-Hatch Associates, Southern Campaigns of the Revolutionary War, National Park Service, June 2005 Halstead, C: The Loyalists in the American Revolution, Gloucester MA, 1959 Harvey, R: A Few Bloody Noses: The American War of Independence, London, 2001 Hibbert, C: Rebels