After georgia officials convinced the van buren administration that the cherokees were preparing to take up arms in resistance to removal, van buren responded by sending troops under to disarm the cherokee and prepare them for moving west.

President Martin Van Buren ordered General Winfield Scott to hasten the removal process of the Cherokees from their lands in Georgia. With 7,000 soldiers at his disposal, General Scott rounded up the Cherokees and placed them in stockades while the whites ransacked the homes and stole the belongings of the Cherokees. The Cherokees were then brought to the Indian Territory in the march known as Trail of Tears because an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 Cherokees died along the way.

He droped it over the bridge into the river