British Inner Defense Line

Threatened with a siege at New York City, General Sir Henry Clinton wrote to General Charles Lord Cornwallis in Virginia on June 11, 1781, recommending that Cornwallis take a defensive position at a healthy location such as Williamsburg or York-town while Clinton reinforced the New York garrison with soldiers from Cornwallis's army. Needing to secure a navy base for that defensive station, Cornwallis chose the prosperous port of Yorktown and began occupying the town in early August. On August 22, Cornwallis reported that his engineer had proposed a plan for fortifying Yorktown, and he ordered it carried out. The plan encircled the town with a primary continuous earthwork incorporated with forts and batteries, known as the British Inner Defense Line. Captain Samuel Graham of the 76th Regiment of Foot described the town as surrounded by a ditch and thick parapet with a hornwork in the center containing batteries lined with fascines, the parapet running to the river on the left, and the works formed from cut trees, fascines, sandy and gravelly earth from the ditch, and a fraize made of fence rails.

Virginia · United States