The battle of Ackia had lasted three hours, but during that brief time there were some as excellent exhibitions of bravery, as well as sad defections of soldiery, as can well be conceived. However, all the dramatic and tragical scenes were not confined to the battle, as other interesting details are to follow. The day was now closing. For about two hours, the utmost quiet had fallen on the scene. The noisy Choctaws, in a camp adjoining, had become strangely silent. Not a note of activity came from the fort, not a man was to be seen. The horses and cattle of the Chickasaws, grazing on the prairie when the battle began, had fled far across the plain, but now that the day was closing, and the firing had ceased, they came wending their way across the expanse to a small stream that flowed at the base of the hill.

In a group the French officers were standing, discussing the scenes of the recent conflict, and indignant at the conduct of the Indian allies; they turned jocularly to Simon, the negro commander, and chid him on the cowardice of his black crew. Simon was polite and bright, and was much in favor with the officers. While he smiled in return to the jocularity of the officers, he glanced about him, suddenly picked up a long rope, and said: “I’ll prove to you that a negro is as brave as anybody, when it is necessary to be,” and with this dashed toward the herd of cattle and horses, selected a milk-white mare, hastily made a halter, mounted on her back, and sped the entire circuit of the walls of the fort, perhaps a distance of a quarter of a mile. He was fired on by hundreds of rifles from the fort, but dashed back to the group of officers without having received a scratch, leaped from the back of the mare, gracefully saluted the officers and bowed, while they cheered his exploit. No one doubted the courage of Simon after that feat.

That night the French slept on their arms. Not a note came from the fort. There was funereal silence everywhere. When, however, light broke over the scene on the following morning, a horrible spectacle met the gaze of the French. The Chickasaws had sallied forth during the night and had borne within the fort the dead left on the scene, had quartered them, and had hung from the walls portions of the bodies of the unfortunate slain. This act of barbarous defiance, added to the sting of defeat, infuriated many of the officers and men, and they demanded to be given another chance at the Chickasaws and they would demolish the fort. Incensed and insulted, they became almost uncontrollable, but Bienville admonished coolness and prudence, for he had had enough, and was now more concerned about how he should get away with his crippled command. As the Choctaw allies had proved an incubus to Bienville from the start, and a source of annoyance and of embarrassment, the governor thought to enlist them in the removal of his stores and of the wounded. To this proposal they at first demurred, then became sullen, and finally refractory, and proposed to abandon the French outright, leave them to their fate, and hunt again their homes to the south.

Bienville was a shrewd diplomat and sagacious, and knew full well that if such an emergency should come, and the Choctaws would reach the boats first, take them and the stores left at Fort Oltibia, float down the river, and leave him and his men to perish in the wilds. In order to avert this calamity he proceeded on a policy of conciliation. It was ascertained that Red Shoes was the instigator of the discontent, who was as merciless as he was shrewdly ambitious of influence and leadership. Bienville dreaded him, and had distrusted him all along, but there was no way of disposing of him, and he had to accompany the command. The governor sent for the chief, who appeared before him accompanied by the despicable Red Shoes. Bienville not only persuaded the chief to remain steadfast, but gained his consent to have his warriors become burden-bearers of the camp equipage. At this agreement between the two leaders, Red Shoes indignantly protested, and in his rage snatched his pistol from his belt and would have shot the chief on the spot, had not Bienville seized his brawny arm and prevented the commission of the deed.

The march back to the boats was tedious and irksome, covering only four miles the first day. Two of the wounded men died on the way and were buried in the woods. The showers under which the march to the fort had prevailed, ceased for a week or more, followed by a season of hot, dry weather, the river at that point had shrunk, and the water was scarcely of sufficient depth to float the craft. As quickly as possible, things were gotten in readiness, the Choctaws were again left to shift for themselves, and Bienville and his command drifted down the river to Fort Tombeckbe. Here he left De Berthel in command, with a year’s supply of provisions, a quantity of merchandise with which to trade with the Indians, the wounded men to be cared for till restored, and Bienville, with spirit much subdued and humiliated over his discomfiture, returned to Mobile.

But what had become of D’Artaguette and his three hundred? His fate was the saddest. In seeking to comply with the request of Bienville to join him in the expedition against the fort, he had fallen in with a body of Chickasaws, who, by superior numbers, had overwhelmed him and captured him and his entire command. Himself and his men were prisoners in the fort during the engagement, and the ammunition used by the Chickasaws was that captured from the ill-fated D’Artaguette. Up to the time of the attack on the fort, D’Artaguette and his men were as well treated as Indians can treat the captured, but on the retirement of Bienville, D’Artaguette and his men were tied to stakes and burned.

For all the disasters attendant on the ill-starred campaign, including that of the fate of D’Artaguette, Bienville was held responsible by the Paris government, with which he lost favor, and the wane of influence and of power followed. Bienville was a victim of conditions over which no mortal could have had control, but it was a juncture of conditions that sometimes comes to the most meritorious of men, into which Bienville was brought, and he had to be sacrificed. While the work that he did laid the foundation of the civilization of three southern commonwealths, he was removed in dishonor, and left the scene of action and sank from view forever.