The Yorktown monument was commissioned by the Continental Congress in 1781 to commemorate the great victory. A 95-foot monument, it commemorates the French-American victory when generals Washington, Rochambeau, the Comte de Grasse, and the Marquis de Lafayette defeated Lord Cornwallis, who waited to be rescued by an expected British flotilla. The Continental Congress agreed to erect the monument in 1781, right after the October victory, but it wasn’t built for nearly 100 years.
