Vertières. Battle of Vertières: Capoix’s assaults, the Charrier knoll taken, a caisson exploded, Paul Prompt killed.

This maneuver, which Capoix would in part carry out, was to bring about the capitulation of Le Cap. General Clervaux had a battery set up two hundred toises from Bréda, of one six-inch howitzer, one four-pounder and one eight-pounder, the command of which was entrusted to two artillerymen, Zénon and Lavelanet. The same night Dessalines had entrenchments thrown up around Vaudreuil, not far from Vertières. He formed the reserve corps, which was to remain with him, of the first two battalions of the 4th, the 8th and the 20th. On 26 brumaire, at daybreak, General Clervaux ordered the attack to begin. The French were beating reveille in the fort. A cannonball lodged in the ramparts of Bréda. At once the forts spread death on every side through the Indigenous ranks. A crowd of our artillerymen had already fallen, and our battery was dismounted. At once General Rochambeau came out of Le Cap at the head of his guard of honor and took up his position near the blockhouse of Vertières. At the same moment Generals Christophe and Romain, coming down from La Vigie, seized the position of Destaing at the charge and drove the French back into the town. Dessalines saw that the divisions of Gabart, Vernet and Cangé, standing at order arms on the high road, were exposed to the most murderous fire of Pierre Michel, which commanded all the other fortifications. He resolved to turn Bréda, to attack it from behind, and at the same time to assail every position the enemy held. By this maneuver he meant to weaken the fire of the French and prevent them from directing it upon a single point. He at once sent General Capoix, who was boldly following the high road to Le Cap, the order to change direction and go and seize the knoll of the Charrier plantation, which commanded Vertières. In the middle of the plateau there was a ravine, crossed opposite Fort Vertières by a small, half-broken bridge. Between this bridge and the fort rose barricades, above which four pieces of cannon were trained upon the Indigenous army. To reach Charrier, Capoix had to pass along the ravine under the fire of this battery. When he came opposite the bridge he was met by so hot a fire that the soldiers of the 9th, 7th and 14th, who formed the vanguard, wavered. Capoix, who had never fled before the French, restored the courage of his grenadiers by his daring and made them hear his terrible voice: “My brave men, you must make yourselves masters of that knoll; the safety of the army depends on it; forward!” The grenadiers of the 9th rushed furiously to meet death. But the French artillery, well served, threw them back with brisk discharges. The 9th threw some disorder into the ranks of the 7th and the 14th, which fell back upon headquarters. Dessalines hurled the 3rd, 11th and 20th demi-brigades against Vertières, and they in their turn were horribly mauled. Capoix, boiling with rage, led his soldiers back into the fight; braving death in the front rank, he checked the rush of the French, who had already crossed the ravine in pursuit of the Indigenous with the bayonet at their backs. The combat was restored; but the grapeshot made great havoc in our ranks, and the most intrepid soldiers of the 9th were struck down. Capoix made a last effort. Mounted on a richly caparisoned horse, he dashed once more, full of ardor, against the fort. His soldiers follow him; they are thrown back; he is indignant; he exhorts them to follow him again; he swears to carry the battery; his grenadiers reach the barricades; but they fall under the grapeshot and the musketry. A cannonball overturns his horse; the intrepid general falls; but he rises at once, marches on, and cries: Forward! Forward! The thunder bursts, his plumed hat is carried away; our ranks thin, and the 9th is halted at the edge of the ravine. Great acclamations ring out from the direction of the Vertières plantation; one can make out cries of Bravo! Bravo! rising from the ranks of Rochambeau’s guard of honor, spectators of the combat. A roll of drums is heard; the fire of the French ceases, and a horseman, presenting himself before the bridge, says to the Indigenous: “Captain-General Rochambeau sends his admiration to the general officer who has just covered himself with so much glory.” The French hussar withdrew, and the combat began again with new fury. The repeated thunder of the cannon rolled on into the depths of the woods. Dessalines saw that unless he seized the Charrier knoll the success of the day would escape him. By making himself master of that position he hoped to dislodge Rochambeau from the knoll of the Vertières plantation and to open the way to the Barrière-Bouteille for Capoix.

Since the beginning of the day Capoix had been holding back the ardor of the French at the bridge of Fort Vertières. Had he given way for a moment, the Indigenous army would have been driven from the plateau of the Haut-du-Cap. Dessalines asked Gabart whether, by seizing Charrier, he would not be certain of victory. Gabart pointed out to him that the troops, in passing under the crossfire of the forts of Bréda, Vertières and Pierre Michel, would be exposed to annihilation. “I will have the Indigenous flag flying on the summit of Charrier within half an hour,” cried Dessalines, “even if I must see every corps of the army vanish, number by number; I will have you pass at order arms under the grapeshot of the forts.” Who could have checked the rush of those numerous columns, exalted by this energetic resolve of Dessalines? For several months the French had left the Charrier knoll unarmed. They were far from suspecting that the Indigenous could conceive the bold plan of making themselves masters of that position, protected as it was by Vertières. The sun was already burning; and the bayonets of Rochambeau’s guard glittered beyond the ravine. For three hours the fighting had raged on every point.

While Capoix was performing prodigies of valor at the foot of Fort Vertières, surrounded by corpses, General Gabart, musket in hand, and General Jean-Philippe Daut, each followed by a battalion of the 10th and by the young soldiers of Port-au-Prince who formed the 3rd battalion of the 4th, dashed into the magnificent avenue that ran along the ravine of Vertières. The French, meaning to annihilate the column, turned all their fire upon it. Whole lines are swept away; but it advances at the charge, unshaken, proud, amid the grapeshot, the cannonballs and the bullets. The gap that opens in the ranks is at once filled by soldiers who show the utmost contempt for death. This fire could not stop the two battalions, which marched on through great fallen trees and Indigenous corpses. At last our bayonets flashed brilliantly on the summit of Charrier, and our soldiers at once answered the fire of Fort Vertières. But our musketry soon fell silent under the sustained fire of the French. It was eleven o’clock. Christophe, who had set up a battery on the summit of La Vigie, was cannonading Le Cap with prodigious activity. The thunder of the artillery and the volleys of musketry were heard without pause. The air was heavy with a thick smoke, torn again and again by the shells and bombs that burst overhead and came down to spread death at Charrier and at headquarters. Dessalines, seated on a broad stone, gave his orders and seemed to delight in this magnificent spectacle. He saw that Rochambeau, at the head of the grenadiers of his guard, was changing position. Fearing that he meant to dislodge Gabart and Jean-Philippe Daut from the Charrier knoll, he ordered Clervaux to go and reinforce them at the head of the 6th. This demi-brigade reached Charrier only after suffering considerable losses. Rochambeau, seeing Capoix on the point of forcing the passage that Fort Vertières defended, did not think it wise to assault the Charrier knoll: Capoix, by dashing into the savanna of Champin, could have fallen upon his rear and cut off all retreat to Le Cap. He had a sixteen-pounder set up in the middle of the savanna, which played briskly upon Charrier. Despite the sustained fire of the forts, Dessalines at once had gunners carry a four-pounder to the summit of Charrier. It soon dismounted the sixteen-pounder the French had just set up. The cavalry of Rochambeau’s guard of honor, two hundred strong, stood motionless not far from the high road, between Vertières and Champin, a spectator of the battle.

On the narrow summit of the Charrier hillock the 4th, 6th and 10th demi-brigades were gathered. Four generals sustained the courage of the soldiers, whom the cannon of Vertières struck down without respite. A space of two hundred paces lay between these two positions. The musketry of the Indigenous began again, and the piece set up on the Charrier knoll played vigorously. General Clervaux, musket in hand, often stepped out of the ranks, despite the entreaties of the soldiers, to send death to the French. Adjutant-general Gérard, of his staff, whenever he went to ask Dessalines for orders at headquarters, passed under the fire of Vertières with the greatest gaiety. Gabart and Jean-Philippe Daut roused the admiration of the soldiers by their coolness. Cannonballs and bombs, thundering with a horrible crash, had crushed the house of Charrier. There was no longer any shelter against the projectiles. Clervaux ordered the soldiers to raise banks of earth against the grapeshot. General Jean-Philippe Daut, whose brilliant uniform drew the enemy’s fire, at once stepped out of the ranks and traced the line of the entrenchments with the point of a bayonet, under thousands of bullets that rained around him. All the troops set to work, and despite the grapeshot of the French the works were finished in less than an hour. Could these brave men have failed to conquer, when such generals led them into battle?

An ammunition wagon blew up inside the walls of Vertières. The explosion was so violent that the French were forced out of the smoke-filled fort with two pieces of cannon. At once Jean-Philippe Daut came down to fight them. He met an unshakable battalion against which he made vain efforts; he was thrown back. While disorder reigned in Vertières from the explosion of the wagon, Dessalines thought that by a brilliant cavalry charge he might open a passage toward the Barrière-Bouteille. He sent for Paul Prompt, one of the most intrepid horsemen of the Artibonite. Prompt, his head crowned with a gleaming helmet, presented himself before the general-in-chief and saluted him by lowering the point of his saber. “Paul Prompt,” Dessalines said to him, “within a few minutes there must not be a single white man outside the fort, or I must hear of your death.” A squadron rode out of headquarters to the sound of trumpets and fell, with Paul Prompt in the front rank, upon the square the French had formed. Each captain, at the head of his company, attacked separately. The French were assailed on every side; but they stood unshaken. Their first line, kneeling, presented the bayonet, while the other two kept up a most murderous fire. Our dragoons came to die against this rampart of iron and fire. At intervals the enemy ranks opened and the grapeshot drove them far back. Many horses filled the ravine near the broken bridge by the barrier of Vertières. Paul Prompt rallied his horsemen; and despite the obstacles that overturned wagons presented in the road, he hurled himself once more against the square with such impetuous force that the French were shaken. Then Dessalines, seeing Major Dominique at his side, said to him: “Dominique, I took your battalion from you because of your weakness in several actions; well then! here is the chance to distinguish yourself and win back my esteem; charge valiantly, and I will give you back your battalion.” Dominique flings himself upon the French, pushes his horse right onto the bayonets, and meets his death in the enemy ranks. The dragoons, fired by Paul Prompt’s example, attack the square with a kind of fury. Horses rearing upon the bayonets of the first line open a passage, and the French, thrown into disorder and cut down by the saber, fall back into the smoke-filled fort. Paul Prompt, carried away by his fiery courage, plunges into the ditches, where he meets his death. Then the cavalry, raked by the grapeshot of the fort’s cannon, is overthrown; it falls back upon the 9th, passes through its ranks, and returns to headquarters with the body of its leader. Dessalines showed himself grieved by the death of Paul Prompt. The 7th, drawn up in line of battle a hundred paces from Fort Vertières with Guerrier, its colonel, at its head, had been heroically enduring the fire of the French since the beginning of the action. After the explosion of the wagon it had moved still closer to the blockhouse.