1888, October – 1889, August 22: (Légitime Attacks, Légitime Falls: The Civil War of 1888–1889): Légitime directed his main effort against the Artibonite and…

1888, October – 1889, August 22: (Légitime Attacks, Légitime Falls: The Civil War of 1888–1889): Légitime directed his main effort against the Artibonite and the North, with seesaw fighting around Gonaïves and St. Marc as regiments shifted allegiance or simply disappeared — Jean-Jumeau, the gnarled Artibonite Caco, turned over a shipload of Légitime’s soldiers to Hyppolite, vanished, then reappeared as one of Hyppolite’s best generals. To regain Jacmel, Légitime sent the implacable mulâtre Dardignac from Nippes, who took the town on October 27 and personally shot the prisoners. The navy struck at Gonaïves and the Cap in December; nearly 9,000 persons fled the Cap as American Consul Goutier reported mothers with babes at their breasts followed by children, though he ended by noting that no great harm resulted. By early January 1889, Anselme Prophète had seized Marmelade and threatened Grande Rivière du Nord, forcing Hyppolite to displace his headquarters east to Ouanaminthe with his back to the Dominican border. In this dark hour, Nord Alexis and Turenne Jean-Gilles materialized at Hyppolite’s side from exile. In early April at Trou du Nord, they poured hot counterfire into Prophète’s troops and carried the church with a whoop, sending the invaders flying. After this debacle Prophète fled to Port-au-Prince; then Monpoint-jeune and Jean-Jumeau broke out of St. Marc and smote Osman Piquant at Dessalines on May 6, and by mid-May five months of government success had been replaced by total rout. France and Britain, in the persons of their ministers, had pushed hard for Légitime — Zohrab personally procured and armed a British steamer for the government and recruited British officers for its navy. On August 20, Légitime summoned the diplomatic corps and announced the inevitable; on the 22nd, as the mob battered in the palace gates, Légitime sallied forth in his carriage, fist clenched around a rosary, while the same crowd that had acclaimed him one year and seven days earlier now cried his name as farewell. He was gotten safely to the wharf and aboard the French cruiser Kerguelen.