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.  If he ventures north of the Tennessee River, I may turn in that direction, and endeavor to get below him on his line of retreat; but thus far he has not gone above the Tennessee River.  General Thomas will have a force strong enough to prevent his reaching any country in which we have an interest; and he has orders, if Hood turns to follow me, to push for Selma, Alabama.  No single army can catch Hood, and I am convinced the best results will follow from our defeating Jeff.  Davis’s cherished plea of making me leave Georgia by manoeuvring.  Thus far I have confined my efforts to thwart this plan, and have reduced baggage so that I can pick up and start in any direction; but I regard the pursuit of Hood as useless.  Still, if he attempts to invade Middle Tennessee, I will hold Decatur, and be prepared to move in that direction; but, unless I let go of Atlanta, my force will not be equal to his.

W. T. Sherman, Major-General.

By this date, under the intelligent and energetic action of Colonel W. W. Wright, and with the labor of fifteen hundred men, the railroad break of fifteen miles about Dalton was repaired so far as to admit of the passage of cars, and I transferred my headquarters to Kingston as more central; and from that place, on the same day (November 2d), again telegraphed to General Grant: