Bienville wanted to destroy these Natchez remnants,[1] and reduce the Chickasaw: 'It is absolutely necessary that some bold and remarkable blow be struck, to impress the Indians with a proper sense of respect and duty toward us.'

D'Artaguette at Fort de Chartres collected detachments throughout the Illinois Country and proceeded with great expedition to Chickasaw Bluff at present-day Memphis.

Unable or unwilling to wait any longer, d'Artaguette arrived before a seemingly isolated village at Ogoula Tchetoka (part of Chuckalissa, or Old Town in present-day northwest Tupelo, Mississippi) with 130 French regulars and militia and 366 Iroquois, Quapaw, Miami, and Illinois warriors.

Leaving 30 French behind to guard supplies, d'Artaguette's northern force attacked with 'great vigor' but was pinned down, routed, and furiously pursued, and its baggage train of valuable shot and powder was captured.

On April 23, the army reached its forward depot at Fort Tombecbé (which had been prepared at present-day Jones Bluff, Sumter County, Alabama, in anticipation of this campaign), and there mustered 544 European and 45 African men, excluding officers, before being met up-river by a 600 man Choctaw contingent.

Quickly fortifying a base camp to protect the supplies and boats, essential for its return, the army departed on May 24 for the nearest Chickasaw village, located about 20 miles across the prairie to the northwest.

Avoiding Apeony, where a trader's cabin flew a British flag, the force stormed Ackia under cover of large shields or mats called mantelets.

Bienville entered the enemy's country without any means of siege, made one attack on a fort, and then, without attempting by scouts to open a communication with D'Artaguette, whom he had ordered to meet him in the Chickasaw country on the 10th of May [sic], or making any attempt to give him proper orders, without even taking one Chickasaw prisoner to get any information of D'Artaguette's proceedings, he retreated, and ended the campaign disastrously.'

A Frenchman's relation of the observations of a Choctaw chief named Red Shoes is quoted by Atkinson: 'The French did not know at all the way to carry on war; we had been able to take only a little village of thirty of forty men; that on the contrary we had lost many men without being able to say that we had killed a single one; that our troops heavily clad marched with too slow a step and so close together that it was impossible for the Chickasaws to fire without killing some of them and wounding several.'

A subdivision called 'Lee Acres' covers the site of the 1736 Battle of Ackia, cited by historians as a pivotal rebuff to French territorial ambitions in the Southeast.