Colbert raid

Also called the Battle of Arkansas Post, the Colbert raid was a failed British effort to seize Fort Carlos III and the nearby Franco-Spanish settlement of Arkansas Post, Louisiana, in what is now Arkansas. The fort's garrison consisted of a detachment from the Louisiana Fixed Infantry Regiment.

In the pre-dawn hours of April 17, 1783, Captain James Colbert of the 16th Regiment of Foot led a sizable force of British irregulars together with Chickasaw allies against the fort and its surrounding community. This clash stands among the final engagements of the American Revolutionary War, and it remains the sole battle fought on Arkansas soil during that conflict. When Spanish troops and Quapaw defenders launched an unexpected counterattack, Colbert's men broke and fled.

This assault fit into a broader pattern of small-scale fighting between Britain and Spain along the Lower Mississippi River, a rivalry stretching back to 1779, the year Spain joined the American side in the war. Notably, the raid occurred a full three months after Spain and Britain had already signed a treaty on January 3, 1783, though news of that peace agreement had yet to reach the isolated Spanish outpost.

Prelude

At the beginning of April, Colbert led his flotilla away from their camp along the Wolf River. Once on the Mississippi, his men came upon American boats making their way downstream toward Natchez, where the passengers intended to settle. Colbert forced these travelers ashore and held them there for six days. Continuing onward, his party reached the area near the White River's mouth, where they came across merchant vessels arriving from both New Orleans and Arkansas Post. Colbert's men captured these boats along with their cargo before turning the flotilla toward the Arkansas River.

On April 16, while still some distance from the post, Colbert sent a handful of Chickasaw ahead as scouts. These men came upon Osotouy, a Quapaw settlement, where they spoke with its chief, Angaska, a Spanish ally who kept up regular contact with Captain Jacobo du Breuil. The scouts claimed they were simply escorting a dozen Americans upriver to greet Du Breuil, and they sealed this story by giving the chief rum.

The ruse worked. Angaska sent no word upriver warning Du Breuil of trouble, and the scouts soon rejoined the rest of Colbert's men before continuing their advance. By midnight on April 17, the British had reached the shoreline near the post's settled area. Wanting to avoid waking any guards or residents, Colbert had wrapped his vessels' paddles in leather to muffle their sound. He brought his troops ashore a short way below the village itself, posting seven men behind to watch over the canoes.

Aftermath

After the defeat, Colbert plunged a tomahawk into the earth by the riverbank as a sign that he meant to come back, then sent Dubreil another warning through one of the village's residents. In it, he claimed that by noon five hundred Chickasaws would join him, along with two boats full of armed men equipped with four swivel guns and a cannon. He declared that if the fort's commandant did not surrender before that hour, and if victory went to him as he expected, he could not promise to restrain his men, and that should the Quapaw be turned against his forces, he would personally order the prisoners killed.

Dubreil paid no attention to this threat, and none of the reinforcements Colbert had described ever appeared once the fort's surrender failed to occur. At midday, Chief Angaska showed up at the post, where Dubreil rebuked him for not warning of the enemy's approach. Once Angaska clarified how Colbert's scouts had misled him, he was dispatched with a force of 100 Quapaw warriors and 20 Spanish soldiers to retrieve those captured during the retreat.

By April 24, Angaska had caught up with Colbert's boats near where the Arkansas River meets its outlet, and he opened talks to secure the captives' freedom. Claiming falsely to command 250 men, he persuaded Colbert to give back all but eight of them. Among the freed was Lieutenant Luis de Villars, together with his wife, though before his release he was made to sign a pledge guaranteeing that five British irregulars, held by Spanish authorities for stirring rebellion in Natchez, would also go free.

De Villars accepted these terms only because refusal meant either a fine or being taken captive again by Colbert. Later, this arrangement was honored when the men in question were released on parole at his request. On May 5, Dubreil sent an account of the engagement to Esteban Miró, the Spanish governor of Louisiana, commending his soldiers' conduct. Eleven days later, Miró wrote back to Colbert, notifying him of the preliminary peace agreement reached between the two nations on January 20 and demanding the unconditional return of all captured people and goods. While the last of the prisoners were indeed set free, Colbert refused to hand back the plundered property.