He actually did choose such a place, at the old railroad-piers, four miles above Florence, Alabama, which is below Muscle Shoals and above Colbert Shoals.
On the 31st of October Forrest made his appearance on the Tennessee River opposite Johnsonville (whence a new railroad led to Nashville), and with his cavalry and field pieces actually crippled and captured two gunboats with five of our transports, a feat of arms which, I confess, excited my admiration.
There is no doubt that the month of October closed to us looking decidedly squally; but, somehow, I was sustained in the belief that in a very few days the tide would turn.
On the 1st of November I telegraphed very fully to General Grant, at City Point, who must have been disturbed by the wild rumors that filled the country, and on the 2d of November received (at Rome) this dispatch: CITY POINT, November 1, 1864--6 P.M.
Major-General SHERMAN: Do you not think it advisable, now that Hood has gone so far north, to entirely ruin him before starting on your proposed campaign?
With Hood's army destroyed, you can go where you please with impunity.

I believed and still believe, if you had started south while Hood was in the neighborhood of you, he would have been forced to go after you.

Now that he is far away he might look upon the chase as useless, and he will go in one direction while you are pushing in the other.

If you can see a chance of destroying Hood's army, attend to that first, and make your other move secondary.
U.S.GRANT, Lieutenant-General.
My answer is dated ROME, GEORGIA, November 2, 1864.
Lieutenant-General U.S.GRANT, City Point, Virginia: Your dispatch is received.

If I could hope to overhaul Hood, I would turn against him with my whole force; then he would retreat to the south west, drawing me as a decoy away from Georgia, which is his chief object.