About

A Guadeloupe plantation owner and owner of enslaved people, Dugommier served in the colonial forces during the Seven Years’ War. At the beginning of the Revolution, he joined the patriot faction in Guadeloupe against the governor and the planter-dominated colonial authorities, and in 1790 led Guadeloupe volunteers in support of the Martinican patriots. He went to France in 1791 and resumed his military career. Promoted to general of division and given command of the army before Toulon in November 1793, he approved a plan strongly advocated by his artillery commander, Bonaparte, to seize the heights controlling the roadstead. Their capture forced the allied fleet to evacuate the city. Appointed commander of the Army of the Eastern Pyrenees in January 1794, Dugommier reorganised the army, defeated the Spanish at Boulou and retook Collioure and Fort Bellegarde. He was killed by a Spanish artillery shell during the battle of the Black Mountain on 18 November 1794. The Convention subsequently ordered his name to be inscribed on a column of the Panthéon.