Driven West

the long version

University of Southern California professor of journalism Langguth maintains America's first civil war occurred during the 1830s when Andrew Jackson expelled Indian tribes from the Deep South and created a bitter North-South conflict. Cherokees "were driven out of Georgia at bayonet point by U.S. Army forces led by General Winfield Scott. At the center of the story are the American statesmen of the day -- Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun-- and those Cherokee leaders who tried to save their people -- Major Ridge, John Ridge, Elias Boudinot, and John Ross. Driven West presents wrenching firsthand accounts of the forced march across the Mississippi along a path of misery and death that the Cherokees called the Trail of Tears. Survivors reached the distant Oklahoma Territory that Jackson had marked out for them, only to find that the bloodiest days of their ordeal still awaited them." -- Dust jacket.