In the night of 15 to 16 nivôse, Dessalines ordered a general attack on Jacmel, and Ogé stormed the Grand-Fort and overthrew Christophe from it.

Each day cost the garrison from ten to twenty dead, both in the defense of the forts and in the center of the town, which the bombs and cannon balls furrowed. Dessalines, in the night of 15 to 16 nivôse (5 to 6 January), ordered a general attack. Laplume and Christophe succeeded in seizing Talavigne and the Grand-Fort. At once Ogé dashed forward at the charge step, took the Grand-Fort by assault and overthrew Christophe from it. Suddenly he divided the reserve into two columns. He attacked in front, while Captain Ducroc was to attack the left. The hesitation that seized his companions in the face of a hail of grapeshot, far from slackening his ardor, only increased it: he leaped upon the ramparts and, clasping in his arms a tree that he met, cried out in a voice of thunder: “Soldiers! will you abandon your chief?” The ramparts were carried at the bayonet. Dessalines, from a neighboring eminence, admired such intrepidity. It is said that he stamped his foot on the ground and asked himself why he had not at his side a lieutenant like Ogé. Then he sent into the fight the brilliant 4th, which formed his reserve. Ogé was obliged, after losing two hundred men, to effect his retreat under the protection of the fort of Léogane and of the Gouvernement (1). Dessalines had Talavigne fortified with gabions. The fusillade from that position alone prevented the inhabitants from moving about in the eastern part of the town (2).