The result of the campaign was the surrender of the British Army force of General Charles Earl Cornwallis, an event that led directly to the beginning of serious peace negotiations and the eventual end of the war.

The campaign was marked by disagreements, indecision, and miscommunication on the part of British leaders, and by a remarkable set of cooperative decisions, at times in violation of orders, by the French and Americans.

Clinton and Cornwallis engaged in a public war of words defending their roles in the campaign, and British naval command also discussed the navy's shortcomings that led to the defeat.

[5] The national currency was virtually worthless, public support for the war, about to enter its sixth year, was waning, and army troops were becoming mutinous over pay and conditions.

[8] The militia were under the overall direction of Continental Army General Baron von Steuben, a prickly Prussian taskmaster who, although he was an excellent drillmaster, alienated not only his subordinates, but also had a difficult relationship with the state's governor, Thomas Jefferson.

After a series of unsuccessful attempts at cooperation with the Americans (leading to failed assaults on Newport, Rhode Island, and Savannah, Georgia), they realized more active participation in North America was needed.

It turned out that the Spanish were not interested in operations against Jamaica until after they had dealt with an expected British attempt to reinforce besieged Gibraltar, and merely wanted to be informed of the movements of the West Indies fleet.

[13] In orders that were deliberately not fully shared with General Washington, De Grasse was instructed to assist in North American operations after his stop at Cap-Français.

He wanted the French to send a naval expedition from their base in Newport, but the commanding admiral, Chevalier Destouches, refused any assistance until he received reports of serious storm damage to part of the British fleet on January 22.

[37] De Tilley's expedition, and the strong encouragement of General Washington, who traveled to Newport to press the case, convinced Destouches to make a larger commitment.

On March 8 he sailed with his entire fleet (7 ships of the line and several frigates, including the recently captured Romulus), carrying French troops to join with Lafayette's in Virginia.

By this time, Baron von Steuben and Peter Muhlenberg, the militia commanders in Virginia, felt they had to make a stand to maintain morale despite the inferior strength of their troops.

[45] Greene divided his inferior force, sending part of his army under Daniel Morgan to threaten the British post at Ninety Six, South Carolina.

[48] The earl won the battle, but Greene was able to withdraw with his army intact, and the British suffered enough casualties that Cornwallis was forced to retreat to Wilmington for reinforcement and resupply.

[51] Cornwallis, in violation of orders but also in the absence of significant strategic direction by General Clinton, decided to take his army, now numbering just 1,400 men, into Virginia on April 25; it was the same day that Phillips and von Steuben fought at Blandford.

Cornwallis reached the Hanover County courthouse on June 1, and, rather than send his whole army after Lafayette, detached Banastre Tarleton and John Graves Simcoe on separate raiding expeditions.

[66] Tarleton, his British Legion reduced by the debacle at Cowpens, rode rapidly with a small force to Charlottesville, where he captured several members of the Virginia legislature.

[83][85] On July 28, he sent the Concorde back to Newport, informing Washington, Rochambeau, and de Barras that he expected to arrive in the Chesapeake at the end of August, and would need to leave by mid-October.

He advanced his army to the Green Spring Plantation, and, based on intelligence that only the British rear guard was left at the crossing, sent General Wayne forward to attack them on July 6.

Arbuthnot had recently been replaced and to show his satisfaction at this development, Clinton now acceded to the Navy's request, despite Cornwallis's warning that the Chesapeake's open bays and navigable rivers meant that any base there "will always be exposed to sudden French attack."

Hood was well satisfied with these arrangements, telling a colleague that his fleet was "equal fully to defeat any designs of the enemy, let de Grasse bring or send what number of ships he might in aid of Barras."

What neither Rodney or Hood knew was de Grasse's last minute decision to take his entire fleet to North America, thus ensuring a French superiority of three to two in battleship strength.

[127] Despite a late attempt by Cornwallis to escape via Gloucester Point, the siege lines closed in on his positions and the allied cannons wrought havoc in the British camps, and on October 17 he opened negotiations to surrender.

Some of the American Continental forces were returned to the New York City region, where Washington continued to stand against the British presence until the end of the war; others were sent south to assist in General Greene's efforts in the Carolinas.

[141] After recapturing a number of British-held targets there, de Grasse was preparing to join with the Spanish for an assault on Jamaica when Admiral Rodney defeated him in the April 1782 Battle of the Saintes, capturing him and his flagship.

On October 25, Washington issued an order which stipulated that all fugitive slaves who had joined the British were to be rounded up by the Continental Army and placed under the supervision of armed guards in fortified positions on both sides of the York River.

Historian Gregory J. W. Urwin describes Washington's action as "[converting] his faithful Continentals—the men credited with winning American independence—into an army of slave catchers.

Instead, he maintained, "the British fleet should be as compact as possible, in order to take the critical moment of an advantage opening ..."[158] Others criticise Hood because he "did not wholeheartedly aid his chief", and that a lesser officer "would have been court-martialled for not doing his utmost to engage the enemy.

[161] King Louis XVI and his ministers received the news warmly, but Castries and the snubbed Charlus ensured that Lauzun and Rochambeau were denied or delayed in the receipt of rewards for the success.

[165] He also observes that a significant number of individual decisions, at times against orders or previous agreements, contributed to the success of the campaign:[10] Of de Grasse's negotiations with the Spanish that secured the use of his fleet and his order to the economic fleet to remain in the West Indies, Royal Navy Captain Thomas White, in his 1830 analysis of the 1781 campaign, wrote that "[i]f the British government had sanctioned, or a British admiral had adopted such a measure, [...] the one would have been turned out, and the other would have been hung: no wonder they succeeded and we failed.