They pressed rapidly along the northern bank of this majestic stream, about forty or fifty miles, due west, until they came to a point where the stream expands into a width of nearly two miles.

This place was called Muscle Shoals.

The river could here be forded, though the bottom was exceedingly rough.

The men were all mounted.

Several horses got their feet so entangled in the crevices of the rocks that they could not be disengaged, and they perished there.