Sign In

The second Battle Plan of Yorktown printed in America.

Andrew Beers's woodcut map of the Battle of Yorktown is of great interest in the history of the American Revolutionary War. It is the second such plan of the battle printed in America and the only contemporary one to be directed at the American public at large. No other view of the battle and its outcome would have been widely available in America until early in the nineteenth century.

Wooldridge notes that

When news of Cornwallis's surrender reached Philadelphia, 'windows flew open, excited residents thrust forth their heads to hear the words, then rushed to the streets to share the news, and embrace each other; artillery salutes boomed fireworks blazed.' The countrywide enthusiasm found expression on the front cover of a Connecticut almanac for 1783. To capitalize on the euphoria, the publisher incorporated a roughly drawn map of Yorktown, apparently based on Bauman, into the design. This was a departure from standard eighteenth-century almanac style, which usually featured a letterpress title and perhaps a small vignette. The publisher obviously thought the addition of the map would give the almanac wider appeal and produce better sales.

As Wooldridge notes, the map was based upon Sebastian Bauman's great survey of the field of battle, which was published in Philadelphia in 1782. Wooldridge describes Bauman's map as the finest evocation of the "transport of joy" which swept the country after the news of victory at Yorktown. The almanac was published later in the same year, so that it would be ready for sale by the beginning of 1783. On the verso of the plan (the inside front cover) is a text headed "Explanation of the Plan of the Investment of York-Town and Glocester," in which eighteen key sites are identified by letter. On the opposite page is the letterpress title and imprint, which as Wooldridge notes, was displaced from the cover by the plan of Yorktown.

This issue of Beers Almanac is for the year 1783 - thus published sometime late in the year 1782.

In 1914, The American Antiquarian Society (List of Connecticut Almanacs, 1709-1850), identified 4 states of the Almanack:

• Publisher: Hartford: Nathaniel Patten (2 copies located)
• Publisher: Hartford: Bavil Webster, for Nathiel Patten (no copies located)
• Publisher: Hartford: Bavil Webster (2 copies located)
• Publisher: Hartford: Bavil Webster ("a very close copy . . . but appears to have been reset througout") (2 copies located, 1 imperfect).

We note one example of the Almanac at auction (no examples of the separate map), which was acquired by the Old Print Shop in 2003 and subsequently offered for sale for $17,500.