Yorktown Victory Monument, Yorktown, Virginia

The Victory Monument at Yorktown, though authorized by congress shortly after the American victory over Cornwallis, who surrendered October 19, 1781, was not built  until 1881.  

According to the National Park Service,

         "I. The base carries an inscription on each of its four sides:

     A. One dedicates the monument as a memorial of victory.

     B. A second presents a succinct narrative of the Siege.

     C. A third commemorates the treaty of alliance with France.

     D. The fourth tells of the resulting treaty of peace with England.

II. The pediments just over the inscriptions carry:

     A. Emblems of nationality.

     B. Emblems of war.

     C. Emblems of the alliance.

     D. Emblems of peace.

"The base is thus devoted to the historical statement."

III. The podium is a "symbol of the birth of freedom."

It carries the sculpture of thirteen "female figures" hand in hand in a solemn dance to denote the unity of the thirteen colonies. Beneath their feet is the inscription "One country, one constitution, one destiny."

IV. The column which springs from the podium, is a "symbol of the greatness and prosperity of the nation after a century of various experience, when thirty-eight free and independent states are shining together in a mighty constellation." There is a star for each state which was in the Union at the time the monument was designed. On the field of the shaft and among the stars, as reminder of the past, is the "shield of Yorktown covering the branch of peace."

V. Atop the shaft is the sculptured figure of "Liberty herself" -- attesting to the existence of the nation as "a proof of the possibility of a government of the people, by the people, for the people."

The monument is about 98 feet tall and stands high on a hill overlooking the York River.