After the surrender, both the Americans and the British hastened away. Scores of brave men, whom thus far the bullets had spared, were the victims of camp fever and smallpox. Fourteen days afterwards, Yorktown became again a sleepy little hamlet of sixty houses.
On the same day that Cornwallis found "the world turned upside down," Clinton sailed from New York, with thirty-five ships and over seven thousand of his best troops. Had this great force reached the scene ten days earlier, the story of Yorktown might have been different.
{ 136} "Cornwallis is taken!" How quickly the news spread! Men, women, and children pour in from the country, and wait along the road leading to Philadelphia, for the long-expected news.
At length a horseman is seen riding at headlong speed.
He waves his hat and shouts to the eager people, "Cornwallis is taken!"
It is Colonel Tilghman, whom Washington sent posthaste to Philadelphia to inform Congress of the surrender.
It is after midnight when he arrives. The drowsy night watchman is slowly pacing the streets. Suddenly is heard the joyful cry, "Past three o'clock, and Cornwallis is taken!"
[Illustration: The Night Watchman announcing the Capture of Cornwallis]
Up go the windows. Men and women rush into the streets, all eager to hear the news. An hour before daylight, old Independence bell rings out its loudest peals, and sunrise is greeted with the boom of cannon.
Congress meets during the forenoon, to read Washington's dispatches. In the afternoon, the members go in solemn procession to the Lutheran church, "and return thanks to Almighty God for crowning the allied armies of the United States and France with success."
At noon on Sunday, November 25, the news reached London. Somebody asked a member of the cabinet how Lord North, the prime minister, received the "communication."
"As he would have taken a cannon ball in his chest," was the reply; "for he opened his arms, exclaimed { 137} wildly, as he walked up and down the room during a few minutes, 'O God! it is all over! it is all over!'"
The news was sent to King George, who replied the same evening. It was noted that His Majesty being a trifle stupid, wrote very calmly, but forgot to mark the exact hour and minute of his writing. This circumstance, the like of which had never happened before, seemed to indicate to his cabinet some unusual disturbance. Shortly afterwards, however, the old king took some comfort in declaring that the Yankees were a wretched set of knaves, whom he was glad to get rid of at any price.