Port-au-Prince. Fressinet’s column marched out
On the Bédette plantation in the plain there was a corps of observation 200 horsemen strong. A battalion of the European 86th, 500 men, and a squadron of gendarmes of 160 men held the town of the Croix-des-Bouquets, whose command belonged to Adjudant-General Gilbert Néraud. The French troops of the Croix-des-Bouquets arrived at Pierroux at eight in the morning of 9 December. Gilbert Néraud attacked General Pétion with a brisk fusillade. The Indigenous, though taken by surprise, formed their line of battle under the enemy’s fire. Geffrard, Marinier and Jean-Louis François withstood the shock of the French along the whole line; they even forced them to give ground. Gilbert Néraud ordered his cavalry to charge; but it could not break the square formed by the 7th, 10th and 13th demi-brigades. The 86th, though it had shown brilliant valor, retreated under cover of the cavalry. Pétion, pressing the advantages of his victory, dashed in pursuit of the French. They, ashamed of their retreat, faced about and began the fight again. Jean-Philippe Daut had received Pétion’s order to abandon the Frère camp and hasten to Pierroux. But he did not move, fearing to be attacked from behind by Lamour Dérance’s men, who were showing hostile intentions. At the same time the French received reinforcements that Néraud had asked of General Fressinet, who commanded at Port-Républicain. Eighty dragoons, four pieces of light artillery and 500 men of fine European troops appeared on the field of battle. The fight grew fiercer and bloodier. Néraud threw himself on the Indigenous with fresh fury. The Indigenous, blasted by grapeshot, entrenched themselves in the great house of Pierroux. Gilbert Néraud had the four cannon trained on them; their cartridges were spent, the grapeshot was crushing them; they were forced to abandon the great house. Then the French cavalry charged them impetuously and put them to utter rout. They would have been cut down to the last man had they not thrown themselves into vast fields of cadasses that stretched behind the Pierroux plantation. The Europeans, unable to make their way through these high and dangerous thorns, gave up the pursuit. Pétion reached the Jonc plantation, where Jean-Philippe Daut came to join him. The national dragoons, Black and of color, who served in the French ranks and were hardened to the fatigues of the country, came again to charge the Indigenous. A young white officer was on the point of cutting down General Pétion when he stayed his blow on recognizing him: he gave him time to get away. Still the Indigenous general would have perished had not Captain Benjamin Noël, with a few grenadiers of the 10th and the 13th around him, faced about and held the enemy dragoons for some moments with several musket shots. The national horsemen rushed furiously on this handful of brave men and rode over them, and one of them, young Hoche Vilbon, a man of color, carried off one of the colors of the 13th.
Pétion could rally the fugitives only at the foot of the mornes that close the plain. He climbed the mountain that leads to La Coupe, a position fortified by nature, two leagues east of Port-Républicain. There he met Caradeux, a Black man, and Germain Frère, chiefs of bands, at the head of the remnants of the 11th demi-brigade; he fraternized with them. A few days later he saw Lamour Dérance there and proposed to him a meeting in the plain of Léogane. Continuing his march, he reached the Grenier plantation, from where he entered the gorges of the Rivière Froide, following the paths that come out on the high road from Port-Républicain to Léogane. Many Indigenous soldiers who had lost their muskets at Pierroux were armed with pikes. This was in the middle of December.
By the victory of Pierroux, Adjudant-General Gilbert Néraud saved the plain of the Cul-de-Sac for the moment. Commandant Viet, a white officer, had reached the field after the fight. He went to camp at Bédette, from where he had come, and the battalion of the 86th of the line went back into the town. This victory, which drove General Pétion from the neighborhood of Port-Républicain, disconcerted a crowd of young Indigenous men who had formed the design of going over to the independents. General Brunet, who commanded the departments of the West and the South, taking advantage of the terror that the defeat of Pierroux had spread among the insurgents, resolved to sweep the enemy from the plain and the mornes near Port-Républicain. He ordered General Fressinet to make an incursion into the countryside. On 25 Frimaire a column of 1,500 infantry marched out of Port-Républicain. After several fights against Germain Frère and Caradeux, Fressinet carried the entrenched camp of Frère, then that of La Coupe. He seized another camp set higher up, at the spring whose waters water La Coupe. He then occupied Marie-Bernard. The Indigenous of the Bussi camp, commanded by Frontiche and Adam, abandoned their position at his approach. After two days of marching and fighting, Fressinet went back into Port-Républicain. Adjudant-General Luthier, learning of General Pétion’s defeat at Pierroux, set out from Hinche with 200 Indigenous Spanish troops and marched on Mirebalais, which he took. David Troy came back from Lascahobas to Saint-Louis and reoccupied the canton of the Grands-Bois, which the French had abandoned.