Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 61, Number 15, 11 March 1889 — FIGHTING IN HATTI. [ARTICLE]

FIGHTING IN HATTI.

Hippolyte Worsted In h Terrible Battle With Legitiuie. New York, March 10th.—The steamer Colsan has arrived with Haytian advices to March 3d. Captain Frazer of the Colsan reports : "Just before leaving Port De Paix we learned that a terrible battle had been fought between the forces of Legitime and Hippolyte thirty-five miles from that place. The latter was routed after a sanguinary combat lasting several hours. Nearly 200 were killed and wounded on each side. Afterward Legitime's soldiers robbed their enemies, dead and wounded. Legitime is daily gaining victories."

For two hours the battle raged. The ammunition of Hippolyte's troops rapidly giving out, many of them threw down their guns and fled. Hippolyte personally rushed to the front and begged them to continue the battle, but the men fled to the woods, the victorious troops in hot pursuit.

Then the massacre began. Many of Hippolyte's men implored General DiKjuesne's men not to kill them but to take them prisoners. Their appeals were in vain, as Legitime had given orders to kill every man. His orders were faithfully obeyed, and everyone of Hippolyte's men who was overtaken was ruthlessly butchered. TRAMPLING OVEB MUTILATED BODIES. Many were beheaded. Darkness stopped the bloody murder, The fugitive who brought the news of this atrocity said he hid himself in the brush, and when Legitime's men had withdrawn, started for St. Marc and fled across the battlefield. He stumbled and fell over heads severed from the bodies of the men. The corpses were cut and backed in a horrible manner, and some were so mutilated as to be hardly recognizable. The following day Hippolyte rallied a few men and attacked Legitime's troops, with terrible loss. so quarter. New York, March 10th.— The World tomorrow will contain the following : "The steamer Cuban arrived in this port yesterday, bringing the news of a bloody battle between Legitime's and Hippolyte's forces, and a massacre by the victors. Captain Frazer brought a copy of La Patrie, the Hippolyte organ, published on February 23d, at Gonaives, and containing an account of the battle and massacre at Grand Saline. The Hippolyte forces in this city were commanded by Generals Mom Point and Jean Meserau. Legitime's army began the attack on the enemy's outposts early in February. They were repulsed several timtrs, but finally succeeded in carrying them, and a few days later were masters of the city and General Meserau'a sword. PILLAGE AKD MASBACBE. Legitime's men were so elated over their success that they immeditely commenced to pillage the town. A drunken soldier shot one of the prisoners for some trifling matter. This was the signal for a general outbreak on the part of the soldiers. They rushed at the prisoners, shooting and stabbing them right and left. The prisoners begged hard and piteously for mercy, but their cries were laughed at and the killing went on, quarter being allowed to none. Never before has such A PITIABLE SIGHT Been presented. The murdered men lay about huddled in scores. Some were frightfully hacked and mutilated, many of the blood-frenzied soldiers having run amuck even among the corpses, plunging their swords again and again into the bodies of the slain. General Meserau tried to stay the butchery, but he was laughed at and warned not Ito interfere if he wished to live. When lack of victims stayed the butchers, they robbed the dead and looted and burned the town. Nearly the whole place, says La Petrie, is in ruins. Captain Frazer thinks the city must have been burned between February 2Sth and March Ist. ______