August to 26 October 1919 · Haitianspan
A marine fakes a defeat and a wound, and buys himself a Caco general
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Colonel Wise told Major Meade in the North to get Péralte, and the job went to Gendarmerie Captain Herman Hanneken, a marine sergeant commanding at Grande Rivière. Finding one man in a country that was on his side, guarded by people who moved him every night through mountains nobody had mapped accurately, was the assignment. In August 1919 Jean-Baptiste Conzé, a former Caco general living at Grande Rivière, left town after letting everyone know he had finished with the blan. A Gendarmerie deserter, Private Jean-Edmond François, went with him. Conzé occupied Fort Capois with rum, rations and money, and Cacos joined him. The money came out of Hanneken's own pocket, and every week François or Conzé slipped back into town to report. Péralte was suspicious, which was why he was still alive. Hanneken then led an attack on Fort Capois that failed as conspicuously as he could arrange, and went about afterwards with his arm bandaged and stained with issue red ink. Péralte sent Conzé congratulations and a commission as général de division. On 26 October he brought twelve hundred men to Fort Capois.
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