Battle of Sabana Larga

At sunset on Monday, January 21 , 1856, the body of the Haitian Army of the North, under the command of General Decayete, who occupied Dajabón and spent the night on the hill of Beller.In the afternoon of the next day, the division of the general Prophete advanced to Jácuba. At 6:00 pm the Dominican Army of the North, under the command of the General Juan Luis Franco Bidó, travelled in three wings along the river Macabon. Two days later, the Dominican left wing (colonels Hungría and Batista), occupies the high pass of Macabon. General Cayemite's division pushed back this force back, beyond the Macabón high pass.

Colonel Hungría received reinforcements from Sabana Larga sent by general Franco Bidó and led by Pepillo Salcedo, and guided by Benito Monción. The Dominican left wing counterattacked and defeated the enemy beyond the Guajabo River, behind Dajabón. At 9:00 am Prophete attacked the Dominican center with General Fernando Valerio in Sabana Larga. The Dominican forces however drove the enemy back to the Cerro de la Plata, where they dug in and offered stubborn resistance. The Dominican right wing with general Florentino and De Peña in front moved behind the hills Jácuba to Cayuco. At 1:00 in the afternoon, Hungría and Batista turned from Guajabo to the northwest, and attacked Prophete's rear guard, breaking his resistance in the Cerro. Florentino and De Peña then descended to the Jácuba savannah, attacking the Haitian forces retreating, completing a double envelopment. Fernando Valerio, center to the head of the third cavalry of Santiago, pursued the rest of the Haitians to the border of the Massacre River or Dajabón.The battle began in its first phase at 6:30 in the morning and culminated with a resounding victory of the Dominican arms at 4:00 in the afternoon.

The battles of Sabana Larga and Jácuba were decisive in convincing Haiti that the Dominican Republic was forever a sovereign nation. The battles of Sabana Larga and Jácuba, in the north of the country, were won by Dominican troops led by the General Juan Luis Franco Bidò on the January 24, 1856. The Dominican troops that were led by commanders Pedro Florentino and Lucas Peña spectacularly defeated the invading army, and these decisive confrontations convinced the Haitians that they would not be able to reoccupy Dominican territory. On their withdrawal, the Haitians headed by the emperor Faustin I, were surprised in their rear by Dominican troops in the Sabana de Jácuba, completing the victory. The general Ferdinand Valerio and the colonel Jose Desiderio Valverde distinguished themselves in the famous day. After this victory was achieved, they remained definitely consolidated, and materialized, with no point of return, in the ideals of the patrician Juan Pablo Duarte.