Petit Fort (Port-de-Paix). Capoix found Moyse’s hat there in 1802; the French were driven into it in 1803

Meanwhile General Capoix was taking from the French Port-de-Paix, to which Rochambeau attached a high importance because of his hold on the island of La Tortue lying opposite, where he had an immense hospital and powder magazines. The Indigenous, once masters of Port-de-Paix, would infallibly seize that considerable depot of munitions. The French warships that had come one after another to cannonade the headquarters at Laveaux-Lapointe had never been able to drive General Capoix from his position. He had had all the projectiles the ships fired onto the shore gathered in his camp, and had resolved to besiege Port-de-Paix. Short of stature, he had quick and piercing eyes; of prodigious daring, he never drew back before danger. He put to death without pity those of his soldiers who committed any act of cowardice. He was nonetheless loved by his troops, who believed themselves invincible when he marched at their head. He habitually wore a laced cocked hat that had belonged to General Moyse. He had found this hat in the small fort of Port-de-Paix when he took possession of that town in 1802, after General Brunet’s evacuation. He sent all the women of the commune of Port-de-Paix, escorted by 100 grenadiers, as far as the Baie des Moustiques, where two eight-pounders stood trained on the shore. These women, who shared the dangers of their brothers, dragged the two pieces by main force to the outskirts of Port-de-Paix. They had covered a distance of eight leagues. Capoix, who had set out from Laveaux-Lapointe at the head of his army, had halted half a mile from the gates of the place. So that the enemy should not discover his guns, he placed them behind a screen of tree branches on a rise that commanded the town, facing a fort called the Blockhouse, which the French had built outside the place. In a single night the Indigenous set up, to protect themselves against the enemy’s fire, gabions that stretched for a mile. Captain Placide Louis placed himself in ambush near the blockhouse behind a long, thick row of trees. On 12 April, at five in the afternoon, Colonel Vincent Louis unmasked the battery, which fired vigorously on the blockhouse; the French answered the fire of the Indigenous. But at six o’clock a violent explosion burst from the blockhouse, which was at once wrapped in thick smoke; stones and shreds of human flesh fell in the ranks of the Indigenous: the powder magazine of that fortification had just blown up. The French ran in disorder toward Fort Pageot. But Placide Louis met them with a brisk fire, pursued them, and entered Fort Pageot with them. There a fight began in which the French garrison perished. The Indigenous flag flew over that fortification. Nothing was left to the French but the enclosure of the place, where the disorder was at its height. Only by displaying the greatest energy did the adjudant-commandants Boscus and Rippert manage to hold the troops in the other forts and on the parade ground. All the white families embarked in the launches in the roadstead and went either to La Tortue or to Le Cap. In the middle of the night Colonel Vincent had Fort Pageot fire on the Grand Fort. The cannonballs that ceaselessly crossed the town spread terror on every side. At one in the morning General Capoix reached, amid a hail of bullets, the Grand Fort, against which he planted three ladders. He mounted to the assault followed by his soldiers and was the first on the ramparts, where he planted the Indigenous flag. At the same time Colonel Vincent was penetrating to the center of the town and driving the French back into Fort Laveaux and the Petit Fort. At daybreak General Capoix cannonaded them without respite. At ten o’clock the adjudant-commandants Rippert and Boscus were forced to make for the beach to embark, covered by the fire of the station corvette. Colonel Vincent fought them on the shore and threw them into the sea. Boscus and Rippert reached the corvette only with difficulty. Three hundred prisoners remained in the power of the Indigenous.