Toussaint Louverture - Madison Bell [78]
The British had a new officer at Saint Marc, General Simcoe, the most redoubtable fighter they'd had on the scene since Brisbane. Toussaint adapted his strategy to suit this new opponent. In April 1797, he recaptured Mirebalais, which had been occupied for the English by the vicomte de Bruges. Recovering this position allowed him access to the plain of Cul de Sac, across which he could threaten the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, which was still in English hands. He advanced as far as Croix des Bouquets, where British resistance finally forced him to retreat. General Simcoe was then inspired to challenge Toussaint along the length of the Artibonite and to reclaim Mirebalais for the English. Dessources, the grand blancs ally of the English who'd been humiliatingly whipped by Toussaint not long before, came out from Saint Marc with two thousand men to occupy Verrettes—in a simultaneous maneuver the British general Churchill recaptured Mirebalais. Toussaint moved out from Gona'ives with a force of ten thousand and again annihilated Dessources and his legion as they attempted a retreat from Verrettes to Saint Marc. One of Dessources's artillery officers shot himself to avoid capture; Dessources himself staggered into Saint Marc “almost naked and covered with mud.”11
Colonel Cambefort, the royalist commander of French forces at Le Cap before 1791 and an associate of Toussaint's through his brother-in-law Bayon de Libertat, had collaborated with the British from the beginning of the occupation of the west. With no great success, the British had tried to use him to win influence in the region of Le Cap during the months when Villatte's rebellion was coming to a boil. Once Toussaint routed Villatte's party, Cambefort was put in command of Saint Marc, until Simcoe replaced him there in May 1797. Fresh from his victories in the interior, Toussaint launched a new assault on Saint Marc; soon after Cambefort departed for Port-au-Prince.
This attack left Mirebalais undefended, but Toussaint knew that if Saint Marc fell, Mirebalais would be easily retaken. In his first rush he captured several camps north of the town, then organized an attack on Fort Charvill, on the peak called Point a Diamant. A battery firing on Saint Marc proper prevented any sortie from the town, while Toussaint's men charged the walls of Fort Charvill with ladders. The attack failed when the ladders turned out to be too short. The following day, the English got reinforcements from Port-au-Prince and recaptured the posts Toussaint had taken. Toussaint was obliged to retreat in some haste, abandoning a couple of cannon and a wallet containing a note from Sonthonax urging him to use those guns against Saint Marc.
Though Saint Marc remained in English hands, Toussaint's threat there had obliged Simcoe to recall his forces from Mirebalais, which Toussaint easily reoccupied. His access to the grasslands and livestock of the Central Plateau was now assured. The English would not seriously challenge him again in the interior, and they had permanently lost the line along the south bank of the Artibonite River.
For Toussaint's successes in this campaign, Sonthonax promoted him to commander in chief of all the French army in Saint Domingue. And on May 23, 1797, Toussaint reported this achievement to Laveaux, and expressed his hope for still more complete victory: “Inspired by love of the public good and the happiness of my fellow citizens, my dearest wishes will be at their zenith, and my gratitude perfected, if I am happy enough to be able, after having expelled all enemies from the colony, to say to France: The standard of liberty flies over all the surface of Saint Domingue.”12 This letter reached Laveaux in France,