Carrefour du Limbé. Assembly point of the picked troops; Dessalines arrived and was held there by rain.

Meanwhile Dessalines did not let the ardor of his troops slacken. After granting them eleven days of rest at Port-au-Prince, he announced to them his plan to go and attack Le Cap. He left the plain of the Cul-de-Sac on 28 vendémiaire, Year 12, having entrusted the command of the second division of the West to General Pétion. On 8 brumaire (31 October) the 3rd demi-brigade, the 4th, the 11th and the 20th set out from the Petite-Rivière de l’Artibonite and reached Les Gonaïves in the middle of the night. The next day Dessalines reviewed them. The same day they left for the Carrefour du Limbé, where all the picked troops of the South, the West, the Artibonite and the North were to assemble. But the division of the South, under the orders of General Geffrard, did not even reach Port-au-Prince. As soon as it arrived at Grand-Goâve, word came that a revolt against Dessalines’s authority had just broken out in the mornes of Jacmel. General Pétion informed the general-in-chief, who ordered Geffrard to go and stifle it, and then to occupy the countryside of Jacmel until the end of the campaign undertaken against Le Cap. Geffrard entered the mornes of Jacmel, dispersed the rebels, who were few in number, and arrested their principal chiefs, who were former partisans of Lamour Dérance. Order was restored on every side.

On 14 brumaire (6 November) Dessalines, accompanied by three squadrons, arrived at the Carrefour du Limbé. The weather was frightful; for several weeks the rains had not ceased to fall in torrents. The army was compelled to halt. On 23 brumaire (15 November) it resumed its march and reached Morne-Rouge. Dessalines established his headquarters on the Lenormand plantation. There the whole army that was to besiege Le Cap assembled. It was fifteen demi-brigades of infantry strong, with three squadrons, making up 27,000 men. Gabart was at the head of the 3rd, the 11th, the 20th and two battalions of the 4th. General Jean-Philippe Daut commanded the 10th, and the 3rd battalion of the 4th, made up of the flower of the youth of Port-au-Prince. Clervaux, the senior general of the army, was at the head of the 6th. Christophe, with General Romain under his orders, commanded the 1st and the 12th. Capoix la mort was at the head of two battalions of the 9th of Port-de-Paix; and the troops of Léogane, Jacmel and Petit-Goâve, making up the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th, were under the orders of Cangé. The 14th and the 7th were commanded by Vernet.