Anse-à-Veau. Stormed by Geffrard in three columns; the French garrison put to the sword

We left Colonel Geffrard setting out from Léogane after parting from Pétion and making his way toward the department of the South at the head of the 13th, to raise the mass of the Indigenous of that province against the French. He left Petit-Goâve on his right, passing through the hills behind that town, and arrived on the Cupérier plantation near the bridge of Miragoâne. There he met the independent troops under the orders of Léveillé, a Black man, united them, and at their head proclaimed Dessalines general-in-chief of the army of the Incas. The people of the South received the authority of Dessalines without enthusiasm, for his name had not been held in veneration in their country since the civil war between Toussaint and Rigaud. Yet they judged that the general-in-chief’s party was the best, since Geffrard, in whom they had full confidence, had embraced it. Geffrard reorganized the 13th by adding to the picked companies of that corps enough recruits to form its three battalions. The center companies of the three battalions of the same corps formed, with the troops of Belle-Rivière, two new demi-brigades, which will become the 15th and 16th. Geffrard gave the command of the 13th to Moreau Cocoherne, that of the second corps to Jean-Louis François, and that of the third corps to Gérin. Without artillery, almost without ammunition, most of his soldiers armed with pikes, he then entered the department of the South and attacked the town of Miragoâne, which he took. He marched at once on L’Anse-à-Veau, where Adjutant-General Bernard, a white officer, was in command. When he reached the Rochelois, he met a French battalion on the Périnier plantation under the orders of Commandant Bérotte. He attacked and scattered it. Bérotte was left dead on the field of battle. The independents, continuing their march, overthrew Adjutant-General Bernard, who had advanced against them. It was noon when they came in sight of L’Anse-à-Veau. It was 16 January. The heat was burning. Geffrard marched against the place in three columns: the right was commanded by Moreau, the left by Gérin, and the center, where Geffrard was, by Jean-Louis François. In the front rank of the grenadiers of the 13th, Moreau assaulted the town and entered it by the main street. After three hours of murderous fighting the Indigenous made themselves masters of every point of the place. The French garrison was put to the sword almost to a man. Bernard escaped to Jérémie in a small vessel. It was then that Geffrard broke the seal of the packet Dessalines had given him at the Petite-Rivière de l’Artibonite, with orders to open it as soon as he had taken an important town of the South on the seashore. In it he found a commission appointing him brigadier general and commander-in-chief of the department of the South. It was for him to display enough skill, talent and daring to make the independents of that department acknowledge his authority.