Savane de Léogane. Désiré crosses it to attack; the rebels are cut down on it.

When the army of the government, seven hundred men, reached the Chatulet plantation, the two columns took opposite directions so as to place the enemy between two fires. It was three o’clock in the morning (20 September). General Désiré was to attack the enemy in front by crossing the savanna of Léogane, and general Terlonge maneuvered so as to assail him from behind by entering the main street of the town on the side opposite the gate of the savanna.

The insurgents, whose number at that moment rose to two hundred men, were drawn up before the gate facing Chatulet with four pieces of artillery; they had a few posts at different points of the town. At their head, conspicuous for their resolution, were Montès, Pierre-Paul, Rouzier-Rousseau, Blanc, Bédouet, Bélus Ledoux, Juste, Camille Plaideau, Fifi Branche d’Or, Bédouet the son, Cajuste Louis, Elie Lhérisson, Dudrai Ducoudray, Thelor, Blanchard, Numa Villefranche, Julien Petit-Breuil, Désir and Aimé Potel. General Terlonge, whose column, without artillery, had gone round the town at the double, throws himself upon the enemy and, after several volleys of musketry, closes with him at the bayonet, forming his soldiers in two files along the galleries of the houses of the main street. General Désiré, whose piece of cannon was being slowly dragged by artillerymen on foot, had also moved off and was out of musket range. The insurgents, taken from behind, turn their pieces of artillery about and discharge them on the troops of the government, who, not filling the street, were not hit.(f)

General Terlonge, at the head of the 3rd regiment, came upon the piece that Montès commanded, who dealt him several thrusts of his sword. Terlonge parries them and fells his enemy with a stroke of the saber beneath the limber. The soldiers of the government put the rebels to flight, seize their artillery and drive them onto the savanna, where they are cut down by the cavalry of general Désiré; but as day had not yet broken, many of the fugitives, though wounded, were able to reach the woods. Montès, wounded, and Rouzier Rousseau and Blanc, killed, remained on the field of battle. At the break of day Terlonge sent out patrols in every direction in search of the fugitives.