Forty French followed their example, but with better order, and escaped by following the unlikely directions of a 16 year-old boy named Voison.
Seventeen French were captured including Artaguette, Vincennes, and the chaplin Father Antoine Senat who had remained to care for the wounded.
The Chickasaw killed Artaguette and the others by burning them alive and then braced for an assault from the opposite direction.
News of the disaster reached him enroute, and on the 20th he paused at the boundary of Choctaw territory (20 miles below where Noxubee Creek joins the Tombigbee) to arab match build Fort Tombecb as a supply base.
There were also important differences to worked out with the Choctaw who wanted to attack the three principal Chickasaw towns, while the French were determined to start with the one occupied by the Natchez refugees.
It was agreed to strike first at Ackia, but having to fight the same mud and terrain as Artaguette, Bienville’s army did not arrive until late May.
By then, with the help of British traders, the Chickasaw had made every house in Ackia into a miniature fort.
They also had powder and supplies captured from Artaguette as well as the French battle plans, but Bienville’s forces still outnumbered the 450 Chickasaw and 150 Natchez defenders of Ackia almost three to one.
Since women and children were present, the Chickasaw sent a delegation to see it would be possible to arrange a truce, but the Choctaw killed them.
A bombardment breached the walls, and French regulars, wearing heavy woolen bags over their upper bodies to protect them against musket balls, stormed inside using grenades against the fortified houses.
The defenders caught them in a crossfire aiming for unprotected legs, and grenades killed more French than Chickasaw that day.
Chickasaw marksmen also took a terrible toll of French officers which added greatly to the confusion during the rout which followed.
Besides the hundreds seriously wounded, they left 70 dead on the field and a string of abandoned dead all the way back to Fort Tombecb.
The Choctaw losses were probably around 100, and the count would have much higher if the Chickasaw had chosen to pursue.
While the exchange of raids and counter-raids continued between the Chickasaw and French allies north of the Ohio, the French looked for ways to avenge this affront to their military honor.
As before, there was a northern group of 40 regulars and 150 Illinois warriors from Fort de Chartres commanded by Alphonse La Buissonniere who had succeeded Artaguette as commandant of the Illinois country.
This time Bienville left nothing to chance that the two forces would link and, proceeding upstream by boat from New Orleans, met the Illinois contingent at the Chickasaw Bluffs on August 15th.
The matter even had the attention the French monarchy, and 700 regular soldiers to Louisiana with specific instructions that they were to be used to “destroy” the Chickasaw
He built Fort Assumption to support the army’s advance, but suddenly it seemed that the Chickasaw could call upon the rain to defend them as easily as their warriors.
The Choctaw were even less enthusiastic about this conflict, and after flirting with British traders for several years, Red Shoes, an important chief, had negotiated a separate peace with the Chickasaw which had been accepted by most of the eastern Choctaw
Bienville’s army was stopped by “mud and flood,” the result of unusual and sustained rainfall for that time of the year.
In the end, the only attack Bienville’s army could mount was Pierre de Cleron’s abortive attempt with 600 Canadian troops and native allies to capture a Chickasaw town and take hostages.