Charles Leclerc (17 March 1772 – 2 November 1802) was a General de Division of the French First Republic during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Haitian Revolution. Leclerc commanded an army of 82,000 French troops and tens of warships to put down the slave revolt in Saint-Domingue in 1802, and he captured Toussaint L'ouverture and sent him to a French prison.
Biography[]
Charles Leclerc was born on 17 March 1772 in Pontoise, France, and he volunteered in the French Revolutionary Army in 1791 during the French Revolutionary Wars. Leclerc served at the Siege of Toulon and became a friend of Napoleon Bonaparte, and in 1797 he was promoted to General de Brigade after fighting at the Battle of Rivoli in France. In 1798, he fought with the Army of the Rhine, and in December 1801 he was promoted to General de Division and given command of 82,000 French troops on an expedition to crush Toussaint L'ouverture's Haitian Revolution in Saint-Domingue. He captured Toussaint during a meeting and deported him to a prison in France, where he would die; he also tried to restore slavery. However, Leclerc died of yellow fever with much of his army in 1802, and Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur de Rochambeau succeeded him.