Beschreibung:

Postscript to the Freeman's Journal, Oct. 24. How are the Mighty fallen
Philadelphia: Francis Bailey, 24 October 1781]. 1 p. broadside newspaper extra (405 x 312 mm). Text in four columns. Wood-cut arms of Pennsylvania surmounting the Royal arms of Britain (the latter deliberately printed upside down!). Condition : printing flaw along a horizontal paper crease, 37 x 70 mm portion clipped from the lower right corner [see note below], restoration to the upper right corner with portions of the date in pen facsimile. Provenance : E. D. Ingraham (within an extra-illustrated set of Henry Lee’s Memoirs of the War, Thomas & Sons, 20 March 1855, lot 289). news of the fall of yorktown reaches philadelphia: the first printing of the articles of capitulation. At the end of September 1781, combined American and French forces, led by George Washington and Rochambeau, laid siege to Cornwallis’s army then entrenched at Yorktown and cut off from supplies by Admiral De Graesse’s victory at the Battle of the Chesapeake. Outnumbering the British forces two to one, Washington began the bombardment of Yorktown on 9 October. Cornwallis offered his surrender to Washington on 17 October and officially capitulated on the 19th -- just four days before the printing of this newspaper extra. The broadside begins under the dateline “Wednesday Evening, Oct. 24, 1781” with: “This Morning arrived in town col. Tilghman, aid de camp to his excellency general Washington; by whom we have the following official account of the surrender of the army under Lord Cornwallis.” Tilghman’s arrival in Philadelphia on that date is confirmed by a 27 October 1781 letter from him to George Washington (see the Papers of George Washington), as well as notice of his arrival and the receipt of the documents cited below in the Journals of the Continental Congress. The text of George Washington’s 19 October 1781 communication to the Continental Congress follows, beginning, “I have the honour to inform congress, that a reduction of the British army under the command of Lord Cornwallis is most happily effected.” Following Washington’s letter are the texts of five enclosures; i.e. the communications between Washington and Cornwallis between 17-18 October. The text of the Articles of Capitulation begins midway down the third column and continues to a typographical line at the bottom of the final column. The terms of the surrender contain fourteen articles and are signed in print by Cornwallis and Thomas Symonds below which appears the statement “Published by order of Congress, Charles Thomson Sec.” (although no such order appears in the Journals of the Continental Congress). Below the typographical line originally appeared an 8-line advertisement for John Oldden’s store on second street, offering sundry goods for sale, which has been clipped off this copy. an amazing contemporary record of the most important event of the american revolution . The Siege of Yorktown was the last major land battle of the Revolution and Cornwallis’ surrender led directly to the end of the conflict. This “Postscript” is notable not only for the first printing of the articles of surrender, but also as among the earliest examples of the use of a newspaper headline and a wonderful graphic representation of the British downfall. very rare . We could locate only three other copies, one lacking the entire fourth column (New York Historical Society, New York Public Library, and the American Philosophical Society).