182 MYTHS OB' THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 



in the hottest part of the year, was attended with so great sickness and 

 mortalit}' that, by resohition of tlie Cherokee national conncil, Ross 

 and tlie other chiefs submitted to General Scott a proposition that the 

 Cherokee be allowed to remove themselves in the fall, after the sickly 

 season had ended. This was granted on condition that all should 

 have started by the 20th of October, excepting the sick and aged « ho 

 might not be able to move so rapidly. Accordingly, officers were 

 appointed l)y the Cherokee council to take charge of the emigrjition; 

 the Indians being organized into detachments averaging one tiiousand 

 each, with two leaders in charge of each detachment, and a sufficient 

 number of wagons and horses for the purpose. In this way the 

 remainder, enrolled at about 13,000 (including negro slaves), started on 

 the long march overland late in the fall (44). 



Those who thus emigrated under the management of their own 

 officers assembled at Rattlesnake springs, about two miles south of 

 Hiwassee river, near the present Charleston, Tennessee, where a linal 

 council was held, in which it was decided to continue their old consti- 

 tution and laws in their new home. Then, in Octol)er, 1838, the long 

 procession of exiles was set in motion. A very few went by the river 

 route; the rest, nearly all of the 13,000, went overland. Cro.ssing to 

 the noi'th side of the Hiwa.ssee at a ferry above Gunstocker creek, 

 they proceeded down along the river, the sick, the old people, and the 

 smaller children, with the blankets, cooking pots, and other l)elong- 

 ings in wagons, the rest on foot or on horses. The number of wagons 

 was 645. 



It was like the march of an army, regiment after regiment, the 

 wagons in the center, the officers along the line and the horsemen on 

 the flanks and at the rear. Tennessee river was cros.sed at Tuckers (?) 

 ferry, a short distance above Jollys island, at the mouth of Hiwassee. 

 Thence the route lay south <jf Pikeville, through McISlininille and 

 on to Nashville, where the Cumberland was crossed. Then they went 

 on to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where the noted chief White-path, 

 in charge of a detachment, sickened and died. His people buried 

 him by the roadside, with a box over the grave and poles with stream- 

 ers around it, that the others coming on behind might note the spot 

 and remember him. Somewhere also along that march of death — for 

 the exiles died by tens and twenties every day of the journey — the 

 devoted wife of John Ross sank down, leaving him to go on with the 

 bitter pain of bereavement added to heartbreak at the ruin of his 

 nation. The Ohio was crossed at a ferry near the mouth of the Cum- 

 berland, and the army passed on thi-ough southern Illinois until the 

 great Mississippi was reached opposite Cape Girardeau, Missouri. It 

 was now the middle of winter, with the river running full of ice, so 

 that several detachments were obliged to wait some time on the east- 

 ern bank for the channel to become clear. In talking with old men 



