Yorktown campaign
De Grasse's French fleet enters Chesapeake Bay and begins blockading Cornwallis
View full image ↗ How was this image made?
The creative brief sent to the image model. These are instructions, not a record of what actually happened.
Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗Five days earlier, Admiral Hood had looked into the Chesapeake, found no French fleet, and sailed away.
30 August 1781: twenty-eight sail inside the capes
On 30 August 1781 the Comte de Grasse entered Chesapeake Bay with 28 French ships of the line and anchored in Lynnhaven Roads. He had left Haiti on 5 August by an indirect route meant to keep the British from guessing his destination.
The fleet that sailed comprised 28 ships of the line, seven frigates and two cutters. The Naval History and Heritage Command puts the embarked troops at 3,200; the National Park Service gives 3,000.
The watchers trapped in the bay
De Grasse's arrival caught two British observation frigates inside the Chesapeake and kept them there, so no prompt report of French strength reached the British command.
Samuel Hood had looked into the bay on 25 August, before the French arrived, and had gone on to New York.
Troops ashore, then the British response
De Grasse began landing French troops to reinforce Lafayette's force, which was watching Cornwallis in the Yorktown area. Anchored inside the capes, the fleet now stood between Cornwallis and any Atlantic route for evacuation or reinforcement.
The position did not go unchallenged for long. Thomas Graves and Hood combined their available ships and sailed from New York on 31 August.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 3 sources 2 audit passes
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →
What the sources leave uncertain
- The Naval History and Heritage Command explicitly dates the entry and anchoring to August 30. A National Park Service account says the fleet arrived “four days” after Hood’s August 25 visit, which would imply August 29, but supplies no explicit alternative date and appears to contain an arithmetic or wording error.
- Official accounts differ slightly over the embarked troop total: the Naval History and Heritage Command gives 3,200, while the National Park Service gives 3,000.