Pétion feigned an attack on the road to Baynet and, that night, led the evacuation of Jacmel through the besiegers’ lines.

But on this Ogé plantation there was a considerable post. Pétion hoped to carry it swiftly, to cross the river of the Gosseline and to reach the mountains before the besiegers had even had time to rally their forces; by the Petit-Harpon he was then to make for Grand-Goâve. For the success of this plan it was only necessary to deceive General Dessalines by a feigned attack, giving him thus to think that the evacuation was being made by the road to Baynet. In the morning of 19 ventôse (10 March), Pétion had several field pieces advanced on this road, which was swept all day, while the fort of the Hôpital cannonaded the post situated behind Fort Pavillon. Dessalines reinforced the troops that were on the road to Baynet.

Thus everything seemed destined to crown the plan of Pétion with full success. This general, at nightfall, ordered the garrisons of the forts to spike their artillery and to betake themselves to the place d’Armes, with the exception of the garrison of the block-house, because, placed near the path that leads to the Ogé plantation, this garrison was, after the passage of the army, to take its place with the rear guard. Pétion, surrounded by his principal lieutenants, Gauthier, Brice-Noailles, Ogé, Segrettier, Boyer, Galant, Marion, Nau and Papalier, was giving his last orders when a white man, M. Dupéroy, physician to the army, whose devotion had never wavered, pretending that he had forgotten his surgical instruments, gave notice that he was going to fetch them. But far from returning, the infamous man ran to the camp of Dessalines and revealed to him all the secrets of the evacuation (1). At first little attention was paid to his absence.

Pétion, at eight o’clock in the evening, took his place with the vanguard together with Ogé, Segrettier, Boyer and Papalier. This vanguard was composed of the company of the regiment of Faubert which he had taken at Baynet, and of two others of the same corps which he had found at Jacmel. Jérémie served as his guide; there came next sixty women, children, old men and wounded men able to bear the road. The main body of the army was commanded by Gauthier. They were about to move when the charge step of the troops of the North was heard. Pétion hastened the march. He was already reaching the path of the block-house when Christophe, at the head of the 1st and 2nd, appeared near the glacis. The commandant Brunache, of the 1st battalion of the legion, was still in that block-house. This captain, covered with scars won in the service of liberty, with all the vigor of a young man, appeared at an embrasure; “I am still,” he cried to the vanguard of Christophe, “commandant of the block-house; no one shall set foot in it before I have come out of it.” The boldness of this brave man halted the enemy for an instant. The cannon are spiked. Brunache takes his place with the rear guard.

Pétion was assailed at the Nérette post, near the Cayman basin (1). His companions seemed to waver. Then he spoke to them these memorable words: “What! will you let yourselves be cast down by the fatigues and dangers inseparable from war, when a woman, to defend herself against the weaknesses of love and to escape shame, lately had at Port-au-Prince the courage to take her own life? Stiffen yourselves, then, against the perils that surround you; you will surmount them and you will fulfill your noble destinies” (2)! These words revived the courage of the soldier. Bayonets forward, the grenadiers sprang upon the eleventh demi-brigade. The melee was horrible. The women and children who were between the vanguard and the main body of the army throw themselves backward, quite distraught and uttering cries of anguish. Here the march is halted, while Pétion, through a thousand deaths, had overrun Christophe and Nérette. Gauthier found himself taken in front and in rear. He had recourse to a stratagem which saved him. He had his companions cry for mercy! Christophe ordered the cessation of fire. Then Gauthier, Brunache, Galant and Marion run rapidly through the ranks and give the soldiers, as a last rallying cry, that of Long live the legion! Courage rises again. They dash with fury upon the front of the troops of Christophe at the magic cry of Long live the legion! Christophe sees his ranks broken. And such energy was so startling that he dared not pursue these brave men. Pétion, for his part, was pursued in the direction of the Rivière-Gauche by fresh troops and swarms of cultivators. But he presented to every danger his usual composure. At last he got beyond the Gast plantation, about half a league from the mouth of the Grande-Rivière; there only did the fire cease. At eight o’clock in the morning he found himself in the approaches of the camp of Tavet, which was commanded by the battalion chief Jeannot-Millien. It was an obstacle difficult to cross. Pétion had around him no more than twenty-two men, almost all officers, so greatly had the different combats he had sustained in that frightful night diminished his forces (1)! Nevertheless he ordered a halt on the glacis of a small neighboring plantation. Jeannot-Millien was not slow to march against him. At first some words were exchanged: “It is impossible,” said Pétion, “that you should have the audacity to fight me when the whole army of your General Dessalines could not prevent me from leaving Jacmel.” At this discourse, delivered with a wholly martial assurance, Millien doubtless believed in the presence of a considerable force, for, after exchanging a few musket shots, he went back up to his camp.