Rochambeau thought he had extinguished the fire of the little redoubt, and would fain storm it. The blacks had protected it by an abatis ten feet deep and three in height, in which our gallant ally of the Revolution entangled himself, and was held there till he had lost three hundred men, and gained nothing.
"Thus the Crête-à-Pierrot, in which (and in the small redoubt) there were hardly twelve hundred men,[34] had already cost us more than fifteen hundred in sheer loss. So we fell back upon the method which we should have tried in the beginning, a vigorous blockade and a sustained cannonade."
The fire was kept up night and day for three days without cessation. Descourtilz, a French naturalist, who had been forced to act as surgeon, was in the redoubt, and he describes the scenes of the interior. The enfilading fire shattered the timber-work, and the bombs set fire to the tents made of macaw-tree foliage, which the negroes threw flaming into the ditch. A cannoneer sees a bomb falls close to a sick friend of his who is asleep; considering that sleep is very needful for him, he seizes the bomb, and cuts off the fuse with a knife. In a corner nods a grenadier overcome with fatigue; a bomb falls at his side; he wakes simultaneously with the explosion, to be blown to sleep again. The soldiers stand and watch the bright parabola, in dead silence; then comes the cry, "Gare à la bombe!" Hungry and thirsty men chew leaden balls for relief. Five hundred men have fallen. Some of the officers come for the surgeon's opium. They will not be taken alive. But the excitement of the scene is so great that opium fails of its wonted effect, and they complain of the tardiness of the dose. Other officers make their wills with sang froid, as if expecting a tranquil administration of their estates.
During the last night the little garrison evacuates the upper redoubt, and is seen coming towards the work. Down goes the drawbridge, the blacks issue to meet them, taking them for a storming party of the French. There is a mutual mistake, both parties of blacks deliver their fire, the sortie party retreats, and the garrison enters the redoubt with them. Here they discover the mistake, but their rage is so great that they exhaust their cartridges upon each other at four paces. Descourtilz takes advantage of the confusion to throw himself into the ditch, and escapes under a volley.
The place is no longer tenable, and must be evacuated. A scout apprises Toussaint of the necessity, and it is arranged that he shall attack from the north, while Lamartinière issues from the redoubt. During Toussaint's feint, the black garrison cut their way through the left of Rochambeau's division.
General Le Clerc cannot withhold his admiration. "The retreat which the commandant of Crête-à-Pierrot dared to conceive and execute is a remarkable feat of arms. We surrounded his post to the number of more than twelve thousand men; he saved himself, did not lose half his garrison, and left us only his dead and wounded. We found the baggage of Dessalines, a few white cannoneers, the music of the guard of honor, a magazine of powder, a number of muskets, and fifteen cannon of great calibre."
Toussaint turned immediately towards the north, raised the cultivators, attacked the corps of observation, drove it into Cap Français, ravaged the plain, turned and defeated Hardy's division, which attempted to keep open the communications with Le Clerc, and would have taken the city, if fresh reinforcements from France had not at the same time arrived in the harbor.
After the arrest of Toussaint, Dessalines reorganized the resistance of the blacks, and attacked Rochambeau in the open field, driving him into the city, where Le Clerc had just died: in that infected atmosphere he kept the best troops of France besieged. "Ah! ce gaillard," the French called the epidemic which came to complete the work of the blacks. Twenty thousand men reinforced Rochambeau, but he capitulated, after a terrible assault which Dessalines made with twenty-seven thousand men, on the 28th November, 1803.
One more touch of negro soldiery must suffice. There was an intrenchment, called Verdière, occupied by the French, upon a hill overlooking the city. Dessalines sent a negro general, Capoix, with three demi-brigades to take it. "They recoiled," says Schoelcher, "horribly mutilated by the fire from the intrenchment. He rallied them: the grape tore them in pieces, and hurled them again to the bottom of the hill. Boiling with rage, Capoix goes to seek fresh troops, mounts a fiery horse, and rushes forward for the third time; but the thousand deaths which the fort delivers repulse his soldiers. He foams with anger, exhorts them, pricks them on, and leads them up a fourth time. A ball kills his horse, and he rolls over, but, soon extricating himself, he runs to the head of the troops. 'En avant! En avant!' he repeats, with enthusiasm; at the same instant his plumed chapeau is swept from his head by a grape-shot, but he still throws himself forward to the assault. 'En avant! En avant!'
"Then great shouts went up along the ramparts of the city: 'Bravo! bravo! vivat! vivat!' cried Rochambeau and his staff, who were watching the assault. A drum-roll is heard, the fire of Verdière pauses, an officer issues from the city, gallops to the very front of the surprised blacks, and saluting, says,—'The Captain-General Rochambeau and the French army send their admiration to the general officer who has just covered himself with glory.' This magnificent message delivered, he turned his horse, reëntered the city, and the assault is renewed. Imagine if Capoix and his soldiers did new prodigies of valor. But the besieged were also electrified, would not be overcome, and Dessalines sent the order to retire. The next day a groom led a richly caparisoned horse to the quarter-general of the blacks, which Rochambeau offered as a mark of his admiration, and to replace that which he regretted had been killed."