August 1, 1781

Two hundred twenty-five years ago, today, George Washington while beseiging New York wrote in his diary -

"I turned my views more seriously than I had before done to the operation to the southward."

In Victory in Yorktown, Richard Ketchum writes:

"From a joyful Lafayette he learned that Cornwallis was taking up a strong position at York and Gloucester, sealing himself off from rescue if the British fleet should not be on hand to protect him. York, the Marquis wrote, 'is surrounded by a river and a morass...Gloucester is a neck of land projected into the river and opposite to York' - both of them tempting vulnerable targets."

Private Joseph Plumb Martin, serving on the Hudson under Washington, wrote in his diary that -

The first of August, I think it was the first day of that month, we all of a sudden marched...toward's Kings Ferry, near the Highlands, crossed the Hudson and lay there a few days , till the baggage, artillery, &c. had crossed, and then proceeded into New Jersey.

Meanwhile, in Yorktown, Virginia -

"A twenty-two-year-old German youth, named Stephen Popp had arrived in Yorktown with other hired troops who joined the British. A day later Popp wrote, 'there are reports that we are in a very bad situation.' "