In the fall of 1780, after five frustrating years of war, George Washington realized that the only way to defeat the British Empire was with the help of the French navy. He had learned after two years of trying, coordinating his army's movements with those of a fleet of warships based thousands of miles away was next to impossible. On September 5, 1781, one of the most important naval engagements in the history of the world, the Battle of the Chesapeake made the subsequent victory of the Americans at Yorktown a virtual inevitability. In a narrative that moves from Washington's headquarters on the Hudson River, to the wooded hillside in North Carolina where Nathanael Greene fought Lord Cornwallis to a vicious draw, to Lafayette's brilliant series of maneuvers across Tidewater Virginia, Philbrick details the suspenseful year through to its triumphant conclusion.