Bienville selected a route up the Mississippi River this time, after receiving assurance from an engineering survey that artillery could be transported overland from there to the Chickasaw villages.

Fort de l'Assumption was built across the Mississippi on the fourth Chickasaw Bluff, at the Margot (present day Wolf) River, to receive men from throughout New France.

Three detachments reached the rendezvous in August 1739: Bienville's nephew Noyan with a vanguard from New Orleans, La Buissionnière from Fort de Chartres with militia and two hundred Illinois, and Céloron with a 'considerable number of Northern Indians' and a company of cadets from Canada.

By January 1740 a highland route was blazed, but in the meantime high water interrupted the supply of provisions and the position at Fort de l'Assumption was becoming untenable.

Suffering under steady Choctaw pressure, and impressed by the massive preparations at Fort de l'Assumption, the Chickasaws had long been giving hints that they would be reasonable.

The incredible months-long delay there lacks definitive explanation, although internal politics and a reluctance to engage without heavy equipment have been advanced as possible reasons.