I came up here to relieve our road.  The Twentieth Corps remains at Atlanta.  Hood reached the road and broke it up between Big Shanty and Acworth.  He attacked Allatoona, but was repulsed.  We have plenty of bread and meat, but forage is scarce.  I want to destroy all the road below Chattanooga, including Atlanta, and to make for the sea-coast.  We cannot defend this long line of road.

And on the same day I telegraphed to General Grant, at City Point: 

It will be a physical impossibility to protect the roads, now that Hood, Forrest, Wheeler, and the whole batch of devils, are turned loose without home or habitation.  I think Hood’s movements indicate a diversion to the end of the Selma & Talladega road, at Blue Mountain, about sixty miles southwest of Rome, from which he will threaten Kingston, Bridgeport, and Decatur, Alabama.  I propose that we break up the railroad from Ohattanooga forward, and that we strike out with our wagons for Milledgeville, Millen, and Savannah.  Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless for us to occupy it; but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people, will cripple their military resources.  By attempting to hold the roads, we will lose a thousand men each month, and will gain no result.  I can make this march, and make Georgia howl!  We have on hand over eight thousand head of cattle and three million rations of bread, but no corn.  We can find plenty of forage in the interior of the State.

Meantime the rebel General Forrest had made a bold circuit in Middle Tennessee, avoiding all fortified points, and breaking up the railroad at several places; but, as usual, he did his work so hastily and carelessly that our engineers soon repaired the damage—­then, retreating before General Rousseau, he left the State of Tennessee, crossing the river near Florence, Alabama, and got off unharmed.

On the 10th of October the enemy appeared south of the Etowah River at Rome, when I ordered all the armies to march to Kingston, rode myself to Cartersville with the Twenty-third Corps (General Cox), and telegraphed from there to General Thomas at Nashville: 

It looks to me as though Hood was bound for Tuscumbia.  He is now crossing the Coosa River below Rome, looking west.  Let me know if you can hold him with your forces now in Tennessee and the expected reenforeements, as, in that event, you know what I propose to do.

I will be at Kingston to-morrow.  I think Rome is strong enough to resist any attack, and the rivers are all high.  If he turns up by Summerville, I will get in behind him.

And on the same day to General Grant, at City Point: 

Hood is now crossing the Coosa, twelve miles below Rome, bound west.  If he passes over to the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, had I not better execute the plan of my letter sent you by Colonel Porter, and leave General Thomas, with the troops now in Tennessee, to defend the State?  He will have an ample force when the reenforcements ordered reach Nashville.