The capture of British Redoubts 9 and 10 enabled the Americans to quickly finish the Allied Second Siege Line and construct the Grand American Battery within point blank artillery range of the British Inner Defensive Line. On October 17, 1781, Continental artillery crews began bombarding the British from the new battery. General George Washington wrote to the President of Congress on October 16, 1781, that the works carried were of vast importance because from them the Americans would enfilade the enemy’s whole line. Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Dearborn of the 1st New Hampshire Regiment said the allied barrage that day made the enemy’s situation so disagreeable that about the middle of the day his lordship sent out a flag with proposals for a capitulation. The following day, officers from both sides met at the home of Augustine Moore to negotiate the British surrender terms. The Grand American Battery’s artillery included 7 eighteen-pounder siege guns, 3 twenty-four-pounder siege guns, 8 mortars, and 4 howitzers.
