Grand-Goâve. Battle of 15 August: Rigaud with 1,800 men routs Dessalines’s 10,000.

Having cast his eyes over the battalions of the North, which presented a force of 10,000 men covering Grand-Goâve, Rigaud formed his army into three columns: the right, made up of the 2nd regiment of 400 men, was entrusted to Colonel Faubert; by pushing into the woods of Thausin it was to take the enemy in the rear after turning Grand-Goâve; the left, made up of the 4th regiment of 400 men under the orders of General Geffrard, was to attack the enemy’s right wing by skirting the seashore; and General Rigaud, at the head of the center column of 1,000 men, was to advance by the high road. Rigaud had resolved to open fire only after hearing the sound of musketry from Faubert’s column. But in his impatience he did not wait for this signal, and ordered the attack at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. The army of the North presented a front that stretched from the woods of Thausin to the seashore. General Rigaud attacked its center with prodigious impetuosity. Dessalines, animated by his usual intrepidity, several times saw his troops give way, yet he held them on the field of battle, braving death in the front rank and striking the soldiers with his cane. His grenadiers fell in whole lines under the brisk and sustained fire of the soldiers of the South. Rigaud redoubled his fury against the center, a mass difficult to pierce. Dessalines, whose dash was not seconded by his heavy, dense bands, resisted with heroism the ceaseless efforts of the troops of the South. Suddenly the regiment of Les Cayes strikes up the Marseillaise; the other corps answer its enthusiasm; Rigaud’s tricolor plume floats like a standard above the battalions; the thundering column hurls itself forward in a new effort, bayonets leveled, and terrifies the army of the North, which, unable to withstand an impetuosity so stubborn, breaks, abandons the field of battle, and crosses Grand-Goâve in the greatest disorder. Yet the 4th demi-brigade of the North, called the Sans-Culottes, still held firm, without wavering, in the cane fields of Thausin. This corps was 2,000 strong. Rigaud launched against it Lieutenant-Colonel Compas at the head of 200 grenadiers. Compas fired a single volley at the Sans-Culottes and closed with them at the bayonet; he was thrown down, struck by a ball; the mêlée became horrible; Gabart Vaillant, who commanded the Sans-Culottes, was obliged to abandon his position and fall back on Grand-Goâve. Compas, gravely wounded, was carried to the ambulance by his grenadiers. From the beginning of the battle Geffrard had put Dessalines’s right wing to full rout along the shore. Rigaud had been wounded in the hand during the action.