must
be disarmed, with the assurance that their weapons will be carefully
preserved and restored at or beyond the Mississippi. In either case
the men will be guarded and escorted, except it may be where their
women and children are safely secured as hostages; but in general,
families in our possession will not be separated, unless it be to
send men as runners to invite others to come in.

"It may happen that Indians will be found too sick, in the opinion
of the nearest surgeon, to be removed to one of the depots indicated
above. In every such case one or more of the family or the friends
of the sick person will be left in attendance, with ample
subsistence and remedies, and the remainder of the family removed
by the troops. Infants, superannuated persons, lunatics, and women
in helpless condition, will all, in the removal, require peculiar
attention, which the brave and humane will seek to adapt to the
necessities of the several cases."

Following is the address to the Indians:

"_Major-General Scott, of the United States Army, sends to the
Cherokee people remaining in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and
Alabama this_

"ADDRESS.

"CHEROKEES: The President of the United States has sent me
with a powerful army to cause you, in obedience of the treaty of
1835, to join that part of your people who are already established
in prosperity on the other side of the Mississippi. Unhappily, the
two years which were allowed for the purpose you have suffered to
pass away without following and without making any preparation to
follow, and now, or by the time that this solemn address shall reach
your distant settlements, the emigration must be commenced in haste,
but, I hope, without disorder. I have no power by granting a further
delay to correct the error that you have committed. The full moon of
May is already on the wane, and before another shall have passed
away every Cherokee man, woman, and child in those States must be in
motion to join their brethren in the far West.

"My friends, this is no sudden determination on the part of the
President, whom you and I must now obey. By the treaty the
emigration was to have been completed on or before the 23d of this
month, and the President has constantly kept you warned during the
two years allowed, through all his officers and agents in this
country, that the treaty woul