Betelles. Wagnac seizes its water

Meanwhile the advance guard of the army of the Republic, commanded by Yayou with General Wagnac under his orders, had reached the Boucassin on the afternoon of the 25th of May. Yayou at once had a fort held by the enemy attacked by Colonel Vancol at the head of the 17th, but he was repulsed. The next day, the 26th, President Pétion left Port-au-Prince with the rest of the army at three in the morning and arrived at the Prince plantation at ten the same day. He blamed General Yayou for having had the fort of the Boucassin attacked without his orders. By one in the afternoon the whole army was assembled at the Boucassin.

The 11th demi-brigade, commanded by the brave Colonel Métellus, moved forward and overthrew the first enemy posts. General Pierre Toussaint, an officer of Christophe’s and a man of rare intrepidity, commanded in the fort that stood on a height overlooking the river of the Betelles, two musket shots from the republican camp. A battalion of the 4th held it; Pétion had it closely invested.

On the 28th the enemy came out of it and resolutely attacked the republican 11th. At the same time a brisk artillery fire was directed on all the positions held by Pétion’s troops. At the urging of Squadron Chief Boyer and General Bonnet, Pétion, under a storm of grapeshot, went to take up a position less exposed to the projectiles. The 11th, for its part, drove the battalion of the 4th back into the fort and inflicted some loss on it.

On the 29th Pétion resolved to cut the enemy off from all access to the water of the river. To obtain this result a body of troops had to be sent behind the chain of mornes held by the troops of the Artibonite. He ordered General Wagnac, who had under him the rural national guards commanded by Colonel Jean Dugotier, to carry out this operation. Wagnac set out and made himself master of the water of the Betelles.