This sword, currently housed at the National Museum of the US Army at Ft. Belvoir, VA, is believed to be sword presented by British forces under Lord Charles Cornwallis to US forces under Gen. George Washington during the British surrender at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781.
After being trapped at Yorktown by Washington’s forces and cut off from evacuation by the French navy, Cornwallis surrendered his army to Washington, effectively ending the American Revolutionary War.
Cornwallis claimed illness and refused to attend the surrender ceremony, sending his deputy, Gen. Charles O’Hara in his stead. O’Hara first attempted offer Cornwallis’s sword to French Comte de Rochambeau, who refused it and pointed O’Hara to Washington. Washington, sensing that Cornwallis’s lack of attendance was a slight, directed O’Hara to surrender to sword to Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, the American second in command.
The sword is owned by Cornwallis’s descendants and is on loan to the US Army through May, 2026.
by kirkl3s
2 Comments
Wait if Cornwallis surrendered the sword, how do his descendants own it? Did officers typically get it back afterwards?
In this kind of situation, would Cornwallis have surrendered his actual sword he carried around, or would he have procured a random sword for the purpose of ceremony? How important was it that it literally be his?