The French Alliance and the Road to Yorktown

The Siege of Yorktown in October 1781 was a decisive win for George Washington’s Continental Army. Yet it was also a triumph for the unlikely wartime alliance forged between patriot revolutionaries and the French King Louis XVI. University of Maryland historian Dr. Richard Bell explores the inside story of this essential alliance as it evolved from small-scale privateering and gun-running into a military partnership that achieved a stunning joint victory at the Yorktown, the climactic battle of the American Revolution.