In the fall of 1838, detachments of emigrating Cherokees under Hair Conrad, Elijah Hicks, John Benge, Jesse Bushyhead, Sitewakee, James D. Wofford, Stephen Foreman, and Moses Daniel prepared to begin their march after closing business at the office of the U.S. commissioners, while Captain David Colston replaced the ailing Conrad and Elijah Hicks moved ahead with his party. John Ross wrote that despite sickness and outside interference, the people in the detachments were eager to proceed and he requested $264,960 to cover the expenses of four detachments. At Blythe's Ferry on the Tennessee River, progress was slowed when only about twenty wagons had crossed by 10 o'clock in the morning, and J. Powell concluded that the ferry proprietors, influenced by nearby citizens for lucrative purposes, were intentionally delaying the emigrants, prompting his suggestion that control of the ferry be secured until all had crossed. By November, some sick members of Wofford's party who had been left near Blythe's Ferry had seen two deaths while the others recovered and were set to continue in Mr. Hilderbrand's detachment, numbering eighty-five. Another requisition sent to Winfield Scott at Athens, Tennessee, on November 9, 1838, sought $92,781.50 for provisions, soap, and forage issued by Lewis Ross under contract with the Cherokee Nation to several detachments delayed by drought and other unavoidable causes before they resumed their westward march.