Les Cayes. Attacked at every point by Geffrard’s four columns from five to seven in the morning; the Indigenous, without artillery, are repulsed; the cry of “Long live Dessalines!” turns the townsmen against them.

The independents, emboldened by the success they had won on the 6th, unaware of the citizens’ disposition in their favor and counting only on their own valor, approached the town during the night of 8 March and attacked it at every point at five in the morning. General Geffrard had formed his army into four columns. Cangé and Moreau, at the head of the first, strove to carry the gate on the high road; Gérin and Jean Louis François, at the head of the second, attacked the ditches on the side of the fort of the Îlet; Vancol, at the head of the third, tried to cross the Renaud river; and Férou delivered an assault toward the post of Trousse-Côte. Berger and Laplume, spurring on the ardor of the 86th and of the Poles, faced the enemy on every side. Part of the national guard was clamoring loudly to make a sortie by the high road of the plain; many citizens meant to go over to the enemy. Suddenly there rose from the ranks of the Indigenous the cry, repeated a thousand times, of “Long live Dessalines!” The sympathy felt for the independents turned to fury. It was believed that Dessalines in person was directing the attack. At the same moment the column commanded by Cangé and Moreau overthrew the Poles who guarded the bridge, entered the town, and at once set about plundering the first shop it came upon. But, suddenly assailed, it could not withstand the impetuous shock of the cavalry and was thrown back beyond the bridge. Gérin, for his part, was making prodigious efforts to cross the ditches that covered the post of the Îlet; but heavy volleys of musketry and artillery forced him to abandon the ground. He rallied the Indigenous, who returned to the fight with such daring that nothing could check their rush; and Battalion Commander Francisque planted a flag on the ramparts near the government palace. But a battery of six guns, suddenly unmasked, poured so murderous a fire upon the independent grenadiers that they were forced to abandon the post they had seized. Francisque was carried off by his soldiers, struck in the thigh by grapeshot. They had been fighting with fury since five in the morning; the Indigenous had no artillery, and on every side the cannonballs swept away whole lines of them. Vancol was repulsed after trying several times to cross the Renaud river. Geffrard, seeing his best soldiers fall, ordered the retreat at seven in the morning. He withdrew in good order to Camp Gérard and prepared to invest the town. Férou received orders to establish himself at Les Côteaux to intercept any communications by land that the garrison of Les Cayes might keep up with that of Tiburon.