As the army began its retreat, Lieutenant-colonel Maitland with the
grenadiers, and marines who were incorporated with the grenadiers,
charged its rear with the purpose of accomplishing its annihilation. It
was then that there occurred the most brilliant feat of the day, and one
of the bravest ever performed by foreign troops in the American cause.
In the army of D'Estaing was a legion of black and mulatto freedmen,
known as Fontages Legion, commanded by Vicount de Fontages, a brave and
experienced officer. The strength of this legion is given variously from
six hundred to over eight hundred men. This legion met the fierce charge
of Maitland and saved the retreating army.

In an official record prepared in Paris, now before me, are these words:
"This legion saved the army at Savannah by bravely covering its retreat.
Among the blacks who rendered signal services at that time were: Andre,
Beauvais, Rigaud, Villatte, Beauregard, Lambert, who latterly became
generals under the convention, including Henri Christophe, the future
king of Haiti." This quotation is taken from a paper secured by the
Honorable Richard Rush, our minister to Paris in 1849, and is preserved
in the Pennsylvania Historical Society. Henri Christophe received a
dangerous gunshot wound in Savannah. Balch says in speaking of Fontages
at Savannah: "He commanded there a legion of mulattoes, according to my
manuscript, of more than eight hundred men, and saved the army after the
useless assault on the fortifications, by bravely covering the
retreat."

It was this legion that formed the connecting link between the siege of
Savannah and the wide development of republican liberty on the Western
continent, which followed early in the present century. In order to show
this connection and the sequences, it will be necessary to sketch in
brief the history of this remarkable body of men, especially that of the
prominent individuals who distinguished themselves at Savannah.

In 1779 the French colony of Saint Domingo was in a state of peace, the
population then consisting of white slaveholders, mulatto and black
freedmen (affranchis), and slaves. Count D'Estaing received orders to
recruit men from Saint Domingo for the auxiliary army; and there being
no question of color raised, received into the service a legion of
colored freedmen. There had been for years a colored militia in Saint
Domingo, and as early as 1716, the Marquis de Chateau-Morand, then
governor of th