Pont Rouge. Dessalines is killed there in an ambush by the 15th and 16th demi-brigades

Dessalines sees that he is betrayed; he is in the midst of the 15th and 16th demi-brigades of the South. He hears the command to make ready, and the cries of *Halt, Emperor! Halt, Emperor! He spurs his horse into the midst of the bayonets with the intrepidity he has shown in a thousand combats. “Soldiers,” he cries, “do you not know me? I am the Emperor! What do you want? What have you come looking for here?” He seizes his cane, which hangs at his side, strikes on every side, and thrusts aside the bayonets leveled at him. He presses on through the ranks, and the troops, seized with terror at the sight of his thunderous face, dare not fire on him. In vain does Commandant Antoine Lespérance, chief of the first battalion of the 15th, cry Fire! Fire! The soldiers begin to break ranks. At last a noncommissioned officer, Duverger, ordered a young soldier of the 15th named Garat to fire. Garat discharges his musket; the Emperor, who is not hit, presses on his way with ardor. At the same instant another shot goes off from the ranks of the 16th. At the sound of this last report the soldiers halt, and Dessalines falls under a general discharge of musketry. He cries out: “To me, Charlotin!” Colonel Charlotin Marcadieux throws himself upon him and covers him with his body; but he expires, his head split by a saber stroke from Squadron Commander Delaunay, an officer of the South. A sublime devotion, which history, in its ever infallible justice, will crown forever. Dessalines is finished off by three dagger blows dealt him by General Yayou; General Vaval’s two pistols misfire on him; he is stripped; his fingers are cut off; the jewels that adorn his hand are taken from him; he is left nothing but his drawers. Yayou orders some grenadiers to carry away the body. The soldiers obeyed only under the compulsion of discipline, which, in this dreadful circumstance, nonetheless reigned sovereign in the army: they said that Dessalines had been a sorcerer. Yayou, as he laid him on the muskets arranged as a litter, cried: “Who would say that this little wretch, not a quarter of an hour ago, made all Haiti tremble!”