Port-de-Paix. Debelle lands here with 1,500 men.
By his plan of campaign, Leclerc was to drive all of Toussaint’s forces back upon Les Gonaïves, blockade them there on every side, and hurl them into the sea, where they would have met certain death. He entrusted the command of the arrondissement of Le Cap to General Boyer, that of the arrondissement of Fort-Dauphin to Rear Admiral Magon, and ordered the divisions of his army to abandon the points they occupied and converge on that center. General of division Debelle, commander of the artillery and engineers of the army, received the order to leave Le Cap with 1,500 men and go to reinforce Humbert, whose reverses in the mornes of Port-de-Paix the captain-general had learned. He was to attack Maurepas and force him to fall back on Les Gonaïves. On 28 Pluviôse (17 February) almost all the French troops occupying the department of the North set out. Desfourneaux’s division left Le Limbé and followed the road to Plaisance; Hardy’s left Le Cap and moved to Le Grand Boucan and Le Mornet. The garrisons of Le Cap and Fort-Dauphin, joined together, marched under the orders of General Boyer and Rear Admiral Magon on Sainte-Suzanne, Le Trou and Vallière, and carried these positions after several most bitter engagements. On 29 Pluviôse (18 February), General Desfourneaux established himself near Plaisance. The commandant of that town, Jean-Pierre Dumesnil, a Black officer, instead of giving everything over to the flames at the approach of the French, as Toussaint’s instructions required, came out to meet Leclerc with 300 infantry and 200 horsemen and made his submission to him. The next day Desfourneaux entered Plaisance without striking a blow.
General Rochambeau, for his part, who, as we have seen, had left Fort Liberté, came up with the enemy on 18 February, scattered them in the woods after a most murderous fight, and took Saint-Raphaël. The same day Christophe was attacked at Le Dondon by General Hardy, who defeated him completely. He withdrew to La Marmelade in the greatest disorder with the remnants of the 1st, 2nd and 5th demi-brigades. He left part of his troops there to hold General Hardy in check, and went to entrench himself at Ennery, on the road to Le Cap, between Plaisance and Le Poteau, in the hope of checking Leclerc’s drive on Les Gonaïves by a stubborn fight. On 30 Pluviôse (19 February), General Hardy took the Morne-à-Bois-Pin, an almost impregnable position, and entered La Marmelade at the charge and with the bayonet, overthrowing before him the troops Christophe had left there.*
Rochambeau, having learned that Toussaint had a considerable depot of powder at the Ravine-à-Couleuvre, resolved to leave General Christophe’s track. He made his way along paths the enemy did not hold and marched on Saint-Michel de l’Atalaya, which he took without striking a blow on 19 February. His right-hand column carried, without firing a musket, the Mare-à-la-Roche, a fairly strong position defended by four hundred men supported by artillery. By this maneuver Rochambeau, after securing a line of retreat on Saint-Michel, was to burst out unexpectedly by the Ravine-à-Couleuvre into the plain of Lacroix, called the Savane Désolée, and cut off every retreat from Toussaint by placing himself between Les Gonaïves and the bridge of the Ester.
On 19 February and the day after, the rains fell so heavily in the districts the French occupied that the roads became impassable. The white troops were forced to halt their march.
Meanwhile the ship of the line l’Intrépide and two frigates, commanded by Linois, were landing the general of division Debelle at Port-de-Paix at the head of 1,500 men of reinforcement (19 February). The reverses Humbert had suffered in fighting Maurepas had struck the French army with astonishment. He was one of the illustrious generals of the expedition. Under the orders of Masséna, in Switzerland, he had contributed especially to the winning of the battle of Zurich. Leclerc wrote to Desfourneaux to have Le Gros-Morne occupied so that Maurepas would be caught between two fires.