Date: November 25, 1783 Evacuation Day was the day that the British troops sailed out of New York City at the end of the American Revolution. (Not to be confused with Evacuation Day in Massachusetts - where the British sailed out of Boston Harbour, nearer to the beginning of the Revolution.) The other British parting shot was a literal one - a British ship fired a cannonball at the crowds on Staten Island, who were jeering at the departing flotilla. Nobody was hurt - the ball fell short of the land - but it's sometimes called the last shot of the American Revolution.