Napoleon wrote that "he was a fearless soldier, covered with wounds and of the greatest bravery, an accomplished general, who always stood firm in good and bad fortune".

As commander at Roermond, he held the post of Herstal, an important passage to the Netherlands, and burned the bridge of Leau after the defeat at Neerwinden on 18 March 1793.

Duhesme, wounded by two shots, knelt down to support himself, presented the point of his saber to the fugitives, and managed to restore order and gain some advantage over the enemy, for which action he was made brigadier general.

After a brilliant campaign that included the capture of Milan and other cities, his corps was made up of Loison, Lorge and Lapoype's divisions.

At the time, he published a highly regarded essay titled Précis historique de l'infanterie légère, (reprinted in 1814) following which he was elected honorary associate member of the Academy of Lyon on December 23, 1806, In 1808, Duhesme led a corps in Napoleon's ill-fated seizure of Spain.

After he persuaded the Spanish governor to admit a convoy of sick Frenchmen, his fully armed grenadiers leapt from their stretchers and captured the castle.

In 1814 he commanded a division under Marshal Victor at La Rothière, Montereau and Arcis-sur-Aube and was made a Count of the Empire and Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour by Napoleon.

Duhesme requested quarter, the hussar declined and cut him down with his sabre commenting that "You slew the Duke of Brunswick the day before yesterday and thou also shalt bite the dust".

This account of the death of Duhesme was also propagated in the histories based on Napoleon's, Victor Hugo's, Pierre Larousse's and Arthur Gore's account of the affair, but it was refuted by a relative of Duhesme and his aide-de-camp on the day, who said he was mortally wounded at Waterloo and captured in Genappe where he was cared for by Prussian surgeons until he died during the night of 19/20 June.