Robert. Crossed by the 5th light.

From there Lux made for the Drouillard plantation, believing it still in the power of the French, through the ranks of the 4th, 8th, 11th and 20th. Dessalines, admiring the French colonel whose plume rose above the bloody bayonets of the 5th, cried out: “That old Lux is a demon; how brave he is! Would it not be shameful if we did not stop his march?” He launched against him the 3rd battalion of the 4th, which formed in line of battle at the foot of the blockhouse of Drouillard. As soon as Lux came out onto the savanna of Drouillard he threw himself with the bayonet upon the 4th, which, seized all at once by a panic terror, fled in the greatest disorder. Dessalines ordered the cavalry to charge. The 5th, reduced to 500 men, could not withstand the impetuosity of 600 dragoons commanded by Charlotin Marcadieux. It was broken and overthrown. It rallied only in the acacia groves of the Drouillard plantation. It crossed the paths of the Chancerelle plantation and came out onto the highroad of Port-Républicain, opposite the hillock held by the divisional general Pétion. It attacked the 3rd, striving to seize that position so as to escape the cavalry and there await help from the city. They fought hand to hand on the rise. Pétion threw it back onto the highroad, where it was charged by our dragoons. It reached the woods of Chancerelle and of Robert and came out at La Saline. Lux reached the Portail Saint-Joseph at the head of 200 men without having lost a single flag. It was three in the afternoon. The French, blackened with powder and covered with dust, entered the city with bayonets leveled, their eyes wild, dazed, ready to hurl themselves on the black and yellow faces they met. Their bayonets had to be pushed up, they had to be brought back to themselves and told forcefully: “5th light, you are among your friends.” They were carried in triumph by their comrades in arms, who had lost hope of seeing them again. The 5th counted 500 men killed or wounded, and Dessalines nearly 400. We have seen that the Indigenous army was 10,000 strong. But in all that multitude there were not 600 cartridges. Dessalines had distributed them to his best marksmen, telling them: “We have no others; let every shot tell.” The French, 700 in number, must have fired more than 14,000 musket shots and at least 40 cannon shots. It is not extraordinary that they forced the passage. Many of the French died in the gardens of Blanchard, strangled by Indigenous who had thrown themselves upon their bayonets. A column that Lavalette had drawn up in line of battle outside the city as soon as he heard the first cannon shots of the affair of Sarthe scoured the woods of Chancerelle and Robert and gathered up many wounded soldiers, worn out with fatigue, who were brought into the city.