In the summer of 1781, after six years of the Revolutionary War, the American Army was struggling. The British military seemed in command. Finally, at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in Yorktown, Virginia, after a five-day bombardment the combined American and French forces attacked and overwhelmed British commander Charles Cornwallis' fortified British position on the night of October 14 in a decisive victory and the last major land battle of the Revolutionary War.

Days later on October 19, 1781, Lord Cornwallis formally surrendered his 8,000 soldiers and seamen to a Franco-American force led by George Washington at Yorktown bringing the American Revolutionary War to a close.

According to a widely recounted report, the defeated British army departed the battlefield to strains of "The World Turned Upside Down," a then-popular song whose words expressed the sentiments of the day. Today this song (now called "Yorktown) about the battle has been reprised in the popular Broadway musical "Hamilton" and depicts the war's final battles:

If ponies rode men and grass ate cows,
And cats were chased into holes by the mouse . . .
If summer were spring and the other way round,
Then all the world would be upside down.