1 to 26 July 1915 · Haitianspan
The Cacos give the American officer coffee, oranges and a turkey
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The Washington reached Cap Haitien on the morning of 1 July 1915. Caperton thanked the captain of the French cruiser Descartes for his landing party and told him the United States would take charge from there. He sent Captain Beach ashore with a marine squad to inform the government commander Probus Blot and the insurgent Rosalvo Bobo that the town was neutral ground and that any further fighting would happen well away from it. Beach never reached Bobo. Guided by Consul Livingston, he found one of the revolution's ministers, a man named Pierrot, in the village of Petite-Anse just east of the town. Beach wrote that he had never seen a more villainous looking set of men, each of them carrying a musket, a pistol, a sword and a long knife. They brought cane bottomed chairs out of the huts, set them in the shade for the visitors, and produced coffee, coarse sugar, and oranges that were sweet under green skins. Beach thought it the best coffee there ever was. When the party left, the Cacos gave them a dressed turkey.
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