When French forces agreed in 1781 to joint operations against the British in Virginia, the stage was set for the climactic battle of the American Revolution. British General Earl Cornwallis’s surrender of his large British army and naval forces at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 19, 1781, marked the end of large-scale fighting during the American Revolution. In this imaginative engraving General Cornwallis is shown presenting his sword while George Washington, holding his hat in his left hand, and other French and American officers look on. In the background, an allegorical scene represents justice, prosperity, and liberty.