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Yorktown, Virginia, USA. British forces, under Lord Cornwallis, had set up a defense perimeter around the town of Yorktown, including 10 redoubts, mounded trenches surrounded by abatis (sharpened tree trunks driven into the earthworks and tangled together with wire). On the night of 14 Oct 1781, under the leadership of Alexander Hamilton, four hundred American light infantry troops assaulted Redoubt 10, with only fixed bayonets, no loaded weapons. Some of the troops went behind the redoubt to prevent the British troops from escaping. Placing ladders across the trench and over the abatis, they overwhelmed the seventy British soldiers, capturing them. Nine Americans were killed and twenty-five wounded by British gunfire. One-quarter mile away, at Redoubt 9, with one hundred and twenty British and German troops, four hundred French troops assaulted it with loaded weapons and took control of it. This helped tighten the siege of Yorktown, leading to its capitulation on 19 October. [Note: Located near the elevated bank of the York River, part of the recount has eroded away, thus it is smaller now than in 1781.]