In the brief period of pacification which preceded this attempt of Bonaparte to reconquer the island, Toussaint was mainly occupied with the organization of agriculture. His army then consisted of only fifteen demi-brigades, numbering in all 22,500, a guard of honor of one thousand infantry, a regiment of cavalry, and an artillery corps. But the military department was in perfect order. There was an État-Major, consisting of a general of division with two aides-de-camp, a company of guides, one of dragoons, and two secretaries,—ten brigadier-generals with ten secretaries, ten aides-de-camp, and an escort,—and a board of health, composed of one chief inspector, six physicians, and six surgeons-general. The commissary and engineering departments were also thoroughly organized. The pay of the 22,500 men amounted to 7,838,400 francs; rations, 6,366,195; musicians, 239,112; uniforming, 1,887,682; officers' uniforms, 208,837. The pay of a non-commissioned officer and private was 55 centimes per day.
In this army there were one thousand mulattoes, and five or six hundred whites, recruited from the various artillery regiments which had been in the colony during the last ten years. Every cultivator was a member of the great reserve of this army, its spy and outpost and partisan.
The chief interest of the campaign against Le Clerc turns upon the obstinate defence of Crête-à-Pierrot. Here the best qualities of black troops were manifested. This was a simple oblong redoubt, thrown up by the English during their brief occupation of the western coast, and strengthened by the negroes. The Artibonite, which is the most important river of the colony, threading its way from the mountains of the interior through the mornes, which are not many miles from the sea, passed under this redoubt, which was placed to command the principal defile into the inaccessible region beyond. The rich central plains, the river, and the mountains belonged to whoever held this post. The Mirbalais quarter could raise potatoes enough to nourish sixty thousand men accustomed to that kind of food.
When Toussaint's plan was spoiled by defection and defeat, he transferred immense munitions to the mountains, and decided to concentrate, for the double purpose of holding the place, if possible, and of getting the French away from their supplies. It was a simple breastwork of Campeachy-wood faced with earth, and had a ditch fifteen feet deep. At a little distance was a small redoubt upon an eminence which overlooked the larger work. To the east the great scarped rocks forbade an approach, and dense spinous undergrowth filled the surrounding forest. The defence of this place was given to Dessalines, a most audacious and able fighter. Toussaint intended to harass the investing columns from the north, and Charles Belair was posted to the south, beyond and near the Artibonite. Toussaint would then be between the fortress and the French corps of observation which was left in the north,—a position which he turned to brilliant advantage. Four French columns, of more than twelve thousand men, commenced, from as many different directions, a slow and difficult movement upon this work. The first column which came within sight of it found a body of negroes drawn up, as if ready to give battle on the outside. It was the surplus of one or two thousand troops which the intrenchment would not hold. The French, expecting to rout them and enter the redoubt with them, charged with the bayonet; the blacks fled, and the French reached the glacis. Suddenly the blacks threw themselves into the ditch, thus exposing the French troops to a terrible fire, which was opened from the redoubt. General Debelle was severely wounded, and three or four hundred men were stretched upon the field.
The advance in another quarter was checked by a small redoubt that opened an unexpected fire. It was necessary to take it, and cannon had to be employed. When the balls began to reach them, the blacks danced and sang, and soon, issuing suddenly, with, cries, "En avant! Canons à nous," attempted to take the pieces with the bayonet. But the supporting fire was too strong, they were thrown into disorder, and the redoubt was entered by the French.
Early one morning the camp of the blacks was surprised by one of the columns, which had surmounted all the difficulties in its way. Notwithstanding the previous experience, the French thought this time to enter, and advanced precipitately. Many blacks entered the redoubt, the rest jumped into the ditch, and the same terrible fire vomited forth. Another column advanced to support the attack; but the first one was already crushed and in full retreat. The blacks swarmed to the parapets, threw planks across the ditch, and attacked both columns with drums beating the charge. The French turned, and met just resistance enough to bring them again within range, the same fire broke forth, and the columns gave way, with a loss to the first of four hundred and eighty men, and two or three hundred to the latter.
Upon this retreat, the cultivators of the neighborhood exchanged shots with the flanking parties, and displayed great boldness.
It was plain to the French that this open redoubt would have to be invested; but before this was done, Dessalines had left the place with all the troops which could not be fed there, and cut his way across a column with the loss of a hundred men. The defence was committed to a quarteroon named Lamartinière.
While the French were completing the investment, the morning music of the black band floated the old strains of the Marseillaise within their lines. La Croix declares that it produced a painful sensation. The soldiers looked at each other, and recalled the great marches which carried victory to that music against the tyrants of Europe. "What!" they said, "are our barbarous enemies in the right? Are we no longer the soldiers of the Republic? Have we become the servile instruments of la politique?" No doubt of that; these children of the Marseillaise and adorers of Moreau had become de trop in the Old World, and had been sent to leave their bones in the defiles of Pensez-y-bien.[33]
The investment of Crête-à-Pierrot was regularly made, by Bacheiu, an engineer who had distinguished himself in Egypt. Batteries were established before the head of each division, a single mortar was got into position, and a battery of seven pieces played upon the little redoubt above. This is getting to be vastly more troublesome than the fort of Bard, which held in check these very officers and men upon their road to Marengo.