le down the York River toward Yorktown,
a method of procedure that now became, as the British reports
described it, the "constant and good policy of the enemy." On the 24th
of September, 1781, Cornwallis proceeded to occupy Yorktown and to
strengthen it against attack.

The city of Yorktown is situated near the entrance to Chesapeake Bay.
At that place two rivers enter the bay, the York and the James, and
upon a conspicuous bluff on the northern side of the neck of land
between them stood this small town.

Cornwallis began at once to prepare the place for assault. Around the
village he built a series of fortifications consisting of seven redoubts
and six batteries on the land side, and these he connected by
intrenchments. He placed a line of batteries on the river bank to command
the channel, and he established outworks to impede the approach of the
enemy. Lafayette saw all this and rejoiced, for he believed that
Cornwallis was at last where he most desired to have him--in a place
where he would be open to attack, and with some hope of success. All the
country around Yorktown was now familiar to Lafayette. He knew every
inch of the land, the river, the morass, and the commanding hill. "Should
a fleet come in at this moment, affairs would take a very happy turn," he
wrote joyfully to General Washington.

On the 30th of August the French fleet, under the Count de Grasse,
with twenty-eight ships of the line, appeared in the waters of
Chesapeake Bay; a few days later the Marquis de Saint Simon, field
marshal in the French army, debarked a large reenforcement of French
troops; and on the 4th of September Lafayette moved nearer to Yorktown
and took a position with the troops he could bring together,--his own
light infantry, the militia, and the reenforcements at Williamsburg, a
town in the vicinity of the British position.

Nothing now remained but the arrival of General Washington himself to
take charge of the whole enterprise, and Lafayette's happiness was
complete when, on the 14th of September, he resigned his command into
the hands of his revered General.

CHAPTER XI

THE TWO REDOUBTS

It is September, 1781. The "Boy" has not been caught. He is encamped
at Williamsburg, and looks toward his powerful enemy who is surrounded
by well-devised intrenchments at Yorktown, twelve miles down the
river.

The American and French troops, fifteen or sixteen thousand in number,
arrived and took their places. General