Chickasaw Campaign of 1736 - Battle of Ogoula Tchetoka

Battle of Ogoula Tchetoka

D'Artaguette at Fort de Chartres collected detachments throughout the Illinois Country and proceeded with great expedition to Chickasaw Bluff at present day Memphis. Despite failing to meet promised detachments under de Monchervaux and de Grandpré, he resumed his march with Chicagou and de Vincennes to the Chickasaw lands, only to be advised by courier that the southern army was late and that he should act according to his own judgement.

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, Arkansas, Miami, and Illinois warriors. The day was 'Palm Sunday', March 25. 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. Surviving remnants scattered back to meet the belated de Monchervaux on the return trail; Bienville wrote that, without the firm resistance given by the Iroquois and Arkansas, not a single Frenchman would have survived. According to French reports, twenty-one of the French were captured of whom nineteen, including d'Artaguette thrice wounded in battle, were executed by burning, some of whom were already dead when thrown into large fires. Two Frenchmen were held in hope of exchange for an imprisoned Chickasaw chief, but were eventually sent to the British in South Carolina.

A contemporary memoir by Dumont de Montigny mistakenly reported this battle as taking place on May 20, 1736, leading to confusion in many later accounts.