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Description

Important battle plan of the Siege of Yorktown.

This is the second appearance of this plan of Yorktown, which first appeared in Banastre Tarleton's A History of the Campaigns of 1780 & 1781 .... This is the second issue of he map, re-engraved for Stedman's History of the American War, published in London in 1793.

In the summer of 1780, the Comte de Rochambeau and 5,500 French Troops arrived in America to support the American cause. At the time, the English held strongholds in New York City and the Lower Chesapeake. Washington and Rochambeau initially planned an attack on New York, but later decided upon a surprise attack against Cornwallis. Cornwallis was in Yorktown to protect the British fleet in the lower Chesapeake.

The French fleet arrived in August 1780. Following a French victory at the Battle of the Battle of the Capes on September 5, 1780, the French under Admiral de Grasse, established a blockade. By the end of September, approximately 17,600 American and French soldiers were gathered in Williamsburg, while 8,300 British soldiers were occupying Yorktown. Clinton ordered a British fleet with 5,000 to sail for Yorktown from New York on October 5. Cornwallis had his men construct a main line of defense around Yorktown that consisted of ten small enclosed forts (redoubts). The Americans and French marched to Yorktown on September 28, 1780. By October 9, the allies' commenced their attack, knocking out the British guns by October 11. The next days were spent bringing up artillery and strengthening the new line.

On the night of October 14, 400 French stormed redoubt 9 and 400 Americans stormed redoubt 10, capturing them in less than 30 minutes. On October 16, the British tried two desperation moves. Early that morning they attacked the allied center, attempted to silence a French Battery, but the French cannons were firing again in less than six hours. Late that night they tried to evacuate Yorktown by crossing the York River in small boats to Gloucester Point. A violent windstorm forced an abandonment of the escape. Arrangements for surrender were commended on October 17. On October 19, most of Cornwallis' army marched out of Yorktown between two lines of allied soldiers-- Americans on one side and French on the other. The British marched to a field where they laid down their arms, and returned to Yorktown.

The map notes a number of significant features of the siege, including notes on the attacks of Redoubts 9 and 10, the position of the Guadalupe and Charon off the coast, along with a dozen or more sunken ships. The positions of many Generals are noted, including Lincoln, Lafayette, Washington and Rochambeau. The first and second parallel's of fortifications around York Town are shown and over a dozen other positions. Roads and topographical details are given. Extends across the York River to show Gloucester and its fortifications and gun placements. One of the best obtainable plans of the battle of York Town, from an important contemporary work.

Reference
Nebenzahl, 202.
William Faden Biography

William Faden (1749-1836) was the most prominent London mapmaker and publisher of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. His father, William Mackfaden, was a printer who dropped the first part of his last name due to the Jacobite rising of 1745. 

Apprenticed to an engraver in the Clothworkers' Company, he was made free of the Company in August of 1771. He entered into a partnership with the family of Thomas Jeffreys, a prolific and well-respected mapmaker who had recently died in 1771. This partnership lasted until 1776. 

Also in 1776, Faden joined the Society of Civil Engineers, which later changed its name to the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers. The Smeatonians operated as an elite, yet practical, dining club and his membership led Faden to several engineering publications, including canal plans and plans of other new engineering projects.

Faden's star rose during the American Revolution, when he produced popular maps and atlases focused on the American colonies and the battles that raged within them. In 1783, just as the war ended, Faden inherited his father's estate, allowing him to fully control his business and expand it; in the same year he gained the title "Geographer in Ordinary to his Majesty."

Faden also commanded a large stock of British county maps, which made him attractive as a partner to the Ordnance Survey; he published the first Ordnance map in 1801, a map of Kent. The Admiralty also admired his work and acquired some of his plates which were re-issued as official naval charts.

Faden was renowned for his ingenuity as well as his business acumen. In 1796 he was awarded a gold medal by the Society of Arts. With his brother-in-law, the astronomer and painter John Russell, he created the first extant lunar globe.

After retiring in 1823 the lucrative business passed to James Wyld, a former apprentice. He died in Shepperton in 1826, leaving a large estate.