4/12/1862 - One of the most audacious missions of the American Civil War takes place along the train tracks of the Western and Atlantic Railroad (W&A) between Atlanta, Georgia and Chattanooga, Tennessee ... so audacious, that though the mission fails, it will result in the newly instituted Medal of Honor, "for bravery above and beyond the call of duty," to be awarded for the first time to six survivors of the attempt to ruin a major transportation system of the Confederacy. Honored with the award in the office of Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, medals of honor go to Private Jacob Parrott, Sergeant Elihu H. Mason, Corporal William Pittinger, Corporal William H. H. Reddick, Private William Bensinger, Private Robert Buffum for their efforts in stealing a locomotive named The General (afterwards, the six men will be taken to the White House to meet President Abraham Lincoln, an honor for the honorees that has now become a tradition with the medal being awarded).
The Great Locomotive Chase
Known as the Great Locomotive Chase (or the Andrew's Raid, or the Mitchel Raid), the plan for the event comes from the mind of a civilian born at Holiday's Cove, Virginia in 1829, James J. Andrews. Before the war between North and South begins, Andrews is a resident of Flemingsburg, Kentucky, where he paints houses, gives music lessons (he will be remembered by the citizens of the town as having a fine singing voice) and is engaged to a young neighborhood beauty named Elizabeth Layton. Seeing the opportunity to create a nice nest egg for his upcoming nuptials, in 1861 Andrew's begins smuggling Quinine (at the time, $5 worth of the drug is selling in Charleston for over $60!) and other contraband into the newly formed southern Confederacy. Back and forth, into and out of the south, the smuggler becomes a familiar character to the citizens of Georgia and the W&A railroad, and soon begins selling information to the Union army about southern troop movements and their defensive positioning ... a double agent willing to work with either side for a profit. At the end of 1861, Andrews attempts to sell Major General Don Carlos Buell on a plan to wreck transportation in Georgia by using a stolen locomotive, a turncoat engineer, and eight volunteers to tear up railroad lines and bridges, but bad weather, poor planning, and the traitor engineer bowing out of the plan cause the mission to be scrapped. Not dissuaded, Andrews modifies his next idea for a train escapade and finds a willing believer in the commander of Federal troops in middle Tennessee, Major General Ormsby MacKnight "Old Stars" Mitchel (his nickname comes his men feeling he is a never-wrong, preening egghead ... he dies from yellow fever in Beaufort, South Carolina later in 1862), a West Point graduate (15th out of the 1829 class of 46 cadets that includes future Confederate generals, Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston) and service academy professor (at West Point he teaches mathematics and astronomy), lawyer, civil engineer with a railroad background, and astronomer. Hoping to distinguish himself from other Union generals by moving forward and taking the transportation hub of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Mitchel buys into Andrews latest plan (for his efforts, it is said that Andrews will be paid $20,000, receive $50,000 in gold, or will get a carte blanche pass to gain $5,000 in profits a month for his smuggled contraband for the duration of the war) ... timed to coincide with Mitchel arriving at Chattanooga and prevent a Confederate counterattack, Andrews and 23 volunteers will disguise themselves as southerners, make their way into Georgia, board the W&A northbound train from Atlanta at the city of Marietta (20 miles outside of Atlanta), take control of the locomotive when the train stops for breakfast at Big Shanty, and then in command of the vehicle, procced to cut telegraph lines, burn down bridges, and tear up railroad ties on their 118 mile journey north to Chattanooga and their return to Union lines (if General Mitchel takes the transportation hub). It is a plan with great potential if successful, and horrible consequences if it fails ... and a plan with many holes in it.
Andrews
Buell
Mitchel
Quietly recruiting his volunteers from the rolls of the 2nd, 21st, and 33rd Ohio Infantry of Mitchel's division of 10,000 men, Andrews selects 14 privates, 5 corporals, 3 sergeants, and one civilian (visiting friends in the 2nd Ohio Infantry, 22-year-old William Hunter Campbell hears Andrews' pitch, and decides to volunteer for the mission). Along with Andrews and Campbell, the men who will come to be known as Andrews' Raiders consists of 22-year-old William Bensinger, 22-year-old Wilson Wright Brown, 32-year-old Robert Buffum, 24-year-old Daniel Allen Dorsey (not yet prepared to move south, the Ohio corporal is still wearing his blue Union trousers when the men move off on their mission), 32-year-old Martin Jones Hawkins, 25-year-old William James Knight, 21-year-old Samuel Llewellyn, 31-year-old Elihu Harlam Mason, 19-year-old Jacob Parrott, 22-year-old William Pittenger, 24-year-old John Reed Porter, 22-year-old William Henry Harrison Reddick, 19-year-old Samuel Robertson, 30-year-old Marion A. Ross, 23-year-old John Morehead Scott, 22-year-old Charles Perry Shadrack, 29-year-old Samuel Slavens, 17-year-old Ovid Wellford Smith, 30-year-old George Davenport Wilson, 28-year-old John Alfred Wilson, 22-year-old John Wollam, and 23-year-old Mark Wood. Among the men are four former railroad engineers, three former teachers, several former farmers, a former cobbler, and even a one-time circus performer. Outfitting themselves in civilian clothing they believe will make them appear to be southerners (if stopped for questioning, the men are told to tell a tale about coming from Fleming County, Kentucky so they can enlist and serve with friends in General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee (a force which has recently had it's nose bloodied at the Battle of Shiloh), after meeting with Andrews as a group for the first time on the Monday evening of the 7th, in small groups of one to four or five men, the raiders are given their marching orders and passage money; they are to be in Marietta by Thursday, where Friday they will board, take, and drive north the morning train from Atlanta, tearing up the W&A right-of-way as they move up the line to meet up with Mitchel. That is the plan at least.
Bragg
Buffum & Brown
Llewellyn & Smith
Hawkins & Porter
After only a few hours of sleep (to those who sleep at all), the raiders dress and make their way to Andrews' room for a final meeting before the mission begins (it is assumed that the sleeping Hawkins and Porter will show up at any minute, or will meet the rest of the team at the train). The plan and assignments are gone over one more time. When Andrews is done discussing the mission, Sergeant Major Ross makes the recommendation that the mission be cancelled because the team is now a day behind the plan as it was originally scheduled, the team is already down two men (not knowing the actual count will be four), and the horrendous weather is forecasted to continue. After considering Ross' position, Andrews decides that the raid will continue, and after shaking hands with the men, the group makes it way out of the hotel and next door to the train station, where tickets are purchased to various destinations along the route. A few minutes later, when their ride from Atlanta arrives, the raiding party climbs aboard a train configured from back to front consisting of two passenger coaches, the mail and baggage car, three empty boxcars with their doors open for Tennessee cargo to brought back down the line, a striped, dark green-painted tender carrying 1,750 gallons of water and two cords of wood, and finally, pulling everything, a twenty-seven foot long, 50,000 pound steam locomotive painted dark green with red-orange accents built at Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor in Paterson, New Jersey in 1855 for $8,850 (it goes into daily service in January of 1856); the locomotive is stenciled on the sandbox atop the large cylindrical boiler with the number 39 (with the cab controlling the engine just behind), and rests on a configuration of four wheels in front and four large, five foot diameter cast iron driving wheels in back known in railroading circles as a 4-4-0 engine, at its front, there is a large red-orange cowcatcher, mounted above the cowcatcher is a tin-plated, two feet in diameter oil lantern for night travel, and topping everything up front, a balloon-style smokestack from Radley & Hunter with a smoke-arrestor. Just in front of the cab, written in gold letters on a plaque is the name the engine has been give: GENERAL. Bound for historical glory, in the wet and cold of a blustery Saturday morning in April, the train pulls out of the Marietta depot at 5:15 a.m., 118 miles from Chattanooga. Roughly forty-five minutes later, the General completes its eight mile trip to Big Shanty (now the town of Kennesaw, Georgia) and the passengers and crew get off, march across the tracks, and amidst 3,000 Confederate recruits of the train stops' Camp McDonald, sit down at the Lacy Hotel (located a brief forty feet away) for a twenty-five cent, twenty minute breakfast of eggs, grits, biscuits with gravy, flapjacks draped with butter and sorghum, and hot coffee.
Big Shanty - Railroad Tracks And The Lacy Hotel
Theft Of A Train
Raiders celebrating their theft and escape (they are brought back to reality by the oldest member of their party, George Wilson, who chides his younger companions, "Don't be so fast, now. We are not out of the woods yet." And he is absolutely right. Leaving Big Shanty behind, the train suddenly slows, almost stopping, before discovering an engine damper has been left open, allowing steam to escape instead of power the train. Fixed, after two and a half miles, the raiders encounter a section gang working on a siding switch, and they use to lie that the train is a "special" running emergency ammunition ahead for the Confederates of General P.G.T. Beauregard, pausing just long enough at Moon's Station to "borrow" some tools from the workers, the most valuable of which is a crowbar (though a huge portion of the plan is to wreck the railroad, Andrews and his raiders have forgotten to bring along the means to accomplish their task). Stopping after passing by the work crew, trying to keep s close as they can to the north bound train's schedule (so as not to be caught meeting the line's daily south bound train, and all the problems such an encounter might prompt), 32-year-old Sergeant John M. Scott climbs a twenty foot pole and takes out the telegraph line (back in Marietta, Porter and Hawkins, having overslept and missed the train, filter out of town, make it into the woods, and begin hiking north, hoping to get back to Union lines before being discovered). Chugging through the station at Acworth (seven miles up the line from Big Shanty), ignoring waiting passengers, the raiders successfully move through the imposing mountain pass at Allatoona (five more miles up the line). Once beyond the small station there, the raiders again stop to tear up more telegraph wires, and to remove a rail from the tracks to thwart any pursuit along the line that might come from the south, discovering to their chagrin that it is an extremely time consuming and labor intensive task with only brute muscle power, wooden cross ties and only a crowbar (they also put a makeshift red flag on the cowcatcher, a universal signal for danger that Andrews hopes will quell questions as the men continue north). Descending and then crossing over the Etowah River, a potential problem is seen on the five mile spur line of Etowah Manufacturing and Mining Company, the Yonah (the Cherokee word for bear), and old 4-4-0 locomotive of the Western & Atlantic being leased to run supplies up to the iron works of Mark Anthony Carter. A surprise no one was expecting, Knight suggests the raiders stop and destroy the locomotive and the bridge they have just crossed over, lest the engine be used in pursuing the men, but Andrews says to keep going and that the Yonah won't make any difference, but he is wrong.
Back down the line, Fuller (Fuller has run miles and miles along the tracks of the W&A as a flagman and brakeman prior to becoming a conductor and uses the time to put a pursuit plan together), Murphy, and Cain arrive at Moon's Station, and there the men grab the hand car of the track crew, a device moved by poles as if it is a raft on water (the men however forego the poles and push along using their feet to propel the car forward, the car has no brakes), and continue northward towards where Fuller knows there is a locomotive waiting (they are joined by crew chief Jackson Bond and one of his men). Reaching Acworth the men remove cross ties left on the tracks and proceed into the station at the small town, where they pick up two-old doubled barreled shotguns, and two more men and their weapons, locals Steven Stokely and Martin Rainey. Almost to the Etowah River, the men are dumped from their car when they hit the section of track Andrews and his raiders have taken the time to remove. Car picked up and carried across the gap in the track, the men then push themselves into the small village and after explaining what is going on, have men ready the Yonah for pursuit of the General (while Murphy makes sure that their new transportation includes a flat car filled with railroad ties, rails, tools, and other items which might be needed in the chase). Engine moved on to the main track by the station's turntable, the pursuit begins again with the Southerners now having an actual chance of catching the General.
Wittsitt
Robertson & Ross
Scott & Slavens
.
Buffum & Brown
Bensinger & Campbell
Problems for the raiders begin that night as a deluge hits the region creating mires of quicksand mud the men must move through to get to Marietta, a distance of roughly 200 miles. It will rain in the Cherokee portion of northern Georgia for the next ten days. In a party of five that includes engineer Knight, Slavens, Dorsey, and Buffum, Andrews procures a gray horse which allows him to keep track of his command and make sure their are no surprises on their path ahead. For all of the raiders, it is a cold, wet, hungry journey to Marietta, which takes the men five days instead of four, throwing off marrying the train raid with the movements of Major General Mitchel's men (the rain does not slow down Mitchel's soldiers), who are following the time table agreed to and have taken the town of Huntsville, Alabama (the third largest city in Alabama at the time). Close calls along the way (one group of men will spend an uncomfortable evening sheltering with a slave hunter, while another polishes their lie by drinking toasts to Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy from a whiskey bottle provided to them by southern sentries), but with two exceptions, all the men are able to talk their way out of danger from questioning civilians and soldiers. Pairing up for their long walk to Marietta, Llewellyn and Smith are moving through the Cumberland Mountains when they run into Confederate guards at the town of Jasper. Story told of seeking enlistment, when the men are heavily questioned, they end further conversations with the soldiers by immediately joining the Confederate Army ... where they receive the assignment of joining the field artillery defending Chattanooga. Without even reaching Marietta, the unit is down two men. The twenty men remaining eventually cross the Tennessee River, and from the town of Chattanooga, take a seven hour train ride to Marietta (located on the south bank of the Chattahoochee River, in 1862 the town has a population of 3,000 souls that may worship in churches of the Baptist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal faiths, and most activities center around a beautiful courthouse square the includes two fine hotels, two saloons, the railroad depot, and a number of shops), and by roughly midnight, everyone is trying to get a few hours of rest at either the Marietta Hotel (the establishment features rooms with feather beds and Marseilles quilts) on the south side of the square (the owner is a 46-year-old Union spy from New York named Henry Greene Cole), or at Fletcher House facing the railroad tracks next to the depot (a former cotton warehouse, turned into a four-story hotel run by Cole's business partner and father-in-law, Massachusetts-born Dix Fletcher). At both motels, the men request the staff to wake them earlier enough the next morning to make their scheduled train departure (20 of the 22 remaining raiders will make the train on time, Martin Hawkins and John Porter however do not, being left to oversleep by a bellman at the Marietta Hotel, upset the day before by not being tipped to perform the task ... it is a major blow to the mission as Hawkins is the most experienced engineer in the group and had been planned to be the conductor responsible for guiding the locomotive forward that Andrew's raiders steal).
Hotel Owner Cole
Llewellyn & Smith
Hawkins & Porter
Depot & Hotel - Marietta, Georgia
The General After Renumbering
Stepping off the left side of the train so as not to be seen by the breakfast diners at the Lacy Hotel, Andrews walked slowly forward to the engine, while ordering William Knight to uncouple the train between the third boxcar and the baggage and mail car, while only yards away, a bored Confederate soldier goes through motions of guard duty, unaware the train is being stolen. As if nothing unusual is happening, the other raiders also exit on the left and take up positions on the train, which now consists of the engine, tender, and three box cars, Andrews checks ahead to make sure all the switches are open, climbs back into the engine cab, and with Knight at the wide open throttle (also with the engine is Wilson Brown, while Alf Wilson takes up a position as brakeman), the train lurches north out of Big Shanty without a shot being fired ... and the alarm almost instantly goes up (Raiders celebrating their theft and escape, the men are brought back to reality by the oldest member of their party, George Wilson, who chides his younger companions, "Don't be so fast, now. We are not out of the woods yet."). Not out of the woods, indeed, up and in running pursuit before he can think out his actions, 26-year-old William Allen Fuller, a veteran of the Western & Atlantic railroad since he was 19 in 1855, leads two other older men (32-year-old Anthony Murphy from Ireland by way of New Jersey and New York, married to a Georgia girl, the line's foreman of motive and machine power and oversight of the company's engineers, and 35-year-old transplanted Pennsylvanian engineer, E. Jefferson Cain) after the locomotive (the fourth member of the train's crew, fireman Andrew Anderson, stays behind and finishes his meal), while on horseback, railroad contractor, Lemuel Kendrick, rides the seven miles back to Marietta to send the message out over their telegraph that the General has been stolen. It is 6:00 in the morning of April 12, 1862.
Fuller
Murphy & Cain
Taking Down The Wires
Allatoona
The Bridge Over The Etowah
The Yonah
Back down the line, Fuller (Fuller has run miles and miles along the tracks of the W&A as a flagman and brakeman prior to becoming a conductor and uses the time to put a pursuit plan together), Murphy, and Cain arrive at Moon's Station, and there the men grab the hand car of the track crew, a device moved by poles as if it is a raft on water (the men however forego the poles and push along using their feet to propel the car forward, the car has no brakes), and continue northward towards where Fuller knows there is a locomotive waiting (they are joined by crew chief Jackson Bond and one of his men). Reaching Acworth the men remove cross ties left on the tracks and proceed into the station at the small town, where they pick up two-old doubled barreled shotguns, and two more men and their weapons, locals Steven Stokely and Martin Rainey. Almost to the Etowah River, the men are dumped from their car when they hit the section of track Andrews and his raiders have taken the time to remove. Car picked up and carried across the gap in the track, the men then push themselves into the small village and after explaining what is going on, have men ready the Yonah for pursuit of the General (while Murphy makes sure that their new transportation includes a flat car filled with railroad ties, rails, tools, and other items which might be needed in the chase). Engine moved on to the main track by the station's turntable, the pursuit begins again with the Southerners now having an actual chance of catching the General.
Etowah Valley
Aboard the General, the train is still a little ahead of schedule as the raiders pass through the town of Cartersville and then move five more miles up the line to the wood-and water station at a lonely spot named for the nearby town, Cassville. Good lies told (the General Beauregard story is believed by most), there, the raiders provide the necessary words and paperwork to take on wood and water for the next push northward through Georgia (and the bold spy, Andrews, even manages to con the latest official railroad schedule away from the local stationmaster, William Russell). Off again, seemingly unconcerned with any pursuit, they leave no obstacles on the tracks outside of town as they move seven miles on to the railroad junction town of Kingston, where because of other track traffic, the party will pass a scheduled southbound train from Rome waiting for the General to go by, and where the stolen locomotive will have to stop itself for that day's Atlanta-bound freight train. Andrews believes the stop should only delay his team a few minutes, but they are actually stopped at the transportation hub for an hour and five minutes, the result of having to stop for two "special" Confederate trains responding to General Mitchel's offensive movements, and barely make it out of the terminal as workers at the hub become suspicious of the the General and the tall bearded man who seems to be ordering people about the depot (when Andrews is refused the switch key that locks and unlocks the tracks, so that the General can continue up the line, the spy simply walks into the station agent's office, and takes the needed key, claiming General Beauregard must have his ammunition at once, and no one stops him.). It is a delay that would not have happened had Andrews and General Mitchel still been on their original schedule instead of being a day off because of the weather ... and it is enough of a delay to allow Fuller to draw within range of the men that have stolen his locomotive. It is 9:30 in the morning as the General pulls out of Kingston and the morning drizzle turns into a soaking downpour.
Taking On Fuel
Stuck In Kingston
Reaching Etowah, the threesome of Fuller, Cain, and Murphy commandeer the Yonah and press forward to Kingston in about 15 minutes, with Fuller at the front of the train looking for obstacles on the tracks or the rails being pulled up, Cain rests his weary feet in the tender, and Murphy takes over in the cab at the train's throttle. Twice on the way to Kingston, the train stops briefly to remove ties on the tracks, but luckily for the pursuers, no rails have been removed. At Kingston, the men discover a host of trains in the station and on various sidings, and Fuller makes a quick decision to grab control of the William R. Smith and use it to continue the pursuit. Explaining the situation to it's engineer, Wiley Harbin, the men transfer to the new locomotive which pulls a lightened load, only the tender and the mail and baggage car (a militia of some 40 men under the leadership of a veteran of Indian fighting in Georgia, Duncan Murchinson, also climb aboard and join the hunt). The William R. Smith soon chugs out of Kingston, now only minutes behind the General. Heading for the station at Adairsville, about six miles north of Kingston, Andrews stops the General and his raiders begin muscling a rail out of the tracks, a task they are almost finished with when the hear the sound of a train whistle coming their way from the south. At Adairsville, the half way point on the W&A's tracks between Atlanta and Chattanooga, the men find a 700-foot-long southbound train, pulled by a 4-4-0 locomotive named Texas, waiting for them to pass. Convincing them of his urgent need for the road, despite another southbound train which hasn't shown up yet, the Texas starts south and the General is free to continue its flight to the north. Whistle constantly blowing to let folks know he is coming should another train meet them running south, the General opens it's throttle for the relatively straight ten mile run. As the raiders reach the Calhoun depot, they find the southbound passenger train, pulled by the locomotive Catoosa, just leaving towards what could have been a head-on collision. An argument then ensues between the Catoosa's conductor, Frank Watts, the locomotive's engineer, Frank Watts, and Andrews over who has the right-of-way, which Andrews finally wins by ordering the men to get out of the way "or else."
The William R. Smith At Kingston
Harbin
The Texas
Advancing from Kingston, the southerners smash through a pile of railroad ties (the train is moving too fast to stop despite Fuller watching the road ahead for impediments), push through a second batch of ties, and come within ten feet of the gap Andrews and company have produced in the gap. Dogged in their pursuit of the General, at the rail gap, Fuller and Murphy leave the William R. Smith behind and begin running along the railroad tracks again, adding another three miles on foot to the distance they had covered in the morning out of Big Shanty. Meeting the Texas (another 4-4-0 fresh from the railroad's repair shop) as it heads south towards the gap, the two men climb aboard and convince the locomotive's engineer, 28-year-old Peter J. Bracken (from Philadelphia) to go after the General, but because there is no turntable available, it will chase the General running in reverse. At Adairsville the engineer drops off twenty-one freight cars, and with only the Texas and its tender coupled together, the chase is on again. With Fuller once more forward looking for obstacles, going fifty miles per hour outside of Adairsville, the Texas makes the nine-mile run to Calhoun in twelve minutes. At the depot, the Texas picks up 17-year-old telegraph operator (he has been working as such since he was 12) Edward Henderson, and Memphis & Charleston Railroad engineer Fleming Cox, and after Texas moves on, a second Confederate locomotive, Catoosa, also goes after the General, carrying armed members of Captain W.J. Whitsitt's First Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment. A mile and a half north of Calhoun, the General stops to buy itself more time in which to reach the Oostanaula River (where the plan is to free themselves from southern pursuit by burning the bridge there), the telegraph line is destroyed again, ties are placed on the line, and the men are in the process of creating another gap in the tracks when they hear the call of a locomotive behind them, having already chosen flight over fight as the order of the day thus far, Andrews orders his men back aboard the General, and the locomotive sets off north once more, but with the ties of the track only loosened (they also uncouple one of their box cars and leave it behind as an obstruction). As the General powers out of the area, for the first time since Big Shanty, pursued and pursuers are all within sight of each other.
The Bridge At Oostanaula
Reaching the area where the General had stopped, Fuller moves forward and gives the okay to the track and Texas is off again, slowly only as from time to time as the raiders drop ties on to the tracks as they head north. Reaching the bridge the raiders had meant to burn down, there is not enough time to stop for its destruction, and instead of leaving the structure in ashes, another boxcar is left behind as a hindrance (but not much of one, like the first boxcar, the car from the General is coupled up and the Texas precedes onward). Just past the bridge, Texas leaves the General's boxcars behind on a siding and the two engines begin a race in which Texas will close on the General, but then slow as it removes ties off the tracks, losing sight of the purloined locomotive, before seeing the fleeing engine ahead when the next straightaway is reached. Roughly paralleling the course of the nearby Connasauga River, the two locomotives pas through Resaca. Seven miles north of Resaca, the General stops at Tilton to take on water and fuel, but the operation is interrupted before it is completed by the Texas appearing only minutes behind. The General leaves with its tender only two-thirds filled with fuel. After Tilton, the next bit of civilization along the line is the depot at Dalton (the largest city on the line north of Marietta), nine miles away. A few hundred feet from the depot, Knight and Brown stop the General and Andrews jumps off and runs forward to check the switch that will allow the General to continue north and not get parked on a siding or be sent along the tracks of the East Tennessee. All clear and ignoring questions, the General barrels through the depot, and minutes later, is followed by the Texas, which pauses long enough for Henderson to jump off and send a message from Fuller to Brigadier General Danville Leadbetter at Chattanooga about what is happening, while a short distance up the line, Sgt. Scott is climbing another telegraph pole to cut its wires. Considered one of the great engineering marvels of its time (it opens for business in 1850), the 1,447-foot-long tunnel that passes under Chetoogeta Mountain beckons to both sides at a spot called Tunnel Hill, seven more miles up the line ... a spot perfect for setting up an ambush on the men following the General, and a place that will indicate how the General is doing based on the smoke found within, black means they are pouring on the speed, clear that the locomotive's steam is down and the locomotive is running out of fuel. Continuing with the pattern he has used all day, Andrews sets up no ambush, and when the Texas reaches the dark opening ahead of it, and light can be seen at the other end, Bracken calls out to his companions in the cab of the Texas, "Boys, we've got 'em now!"
The Chase
Myth Of The Burning Bridge
In Sight
Tunnel Hill Ahead
The chase over before the General is actually caught, the telegraph message goes through to Chattanooga just seconds before the wire is cut, and responding to the message it contains, General Leadbetter moves a unit of his command down the tracks, and sets up an ambush for the northerners eleven miles south of the city that includes tearing up the rails. Texas coming up from the south, Chattanooga to the north cut off (General Mitchel's plans have also gone awry) ... checkmate. Almost out of wood to feed the locomotive's furnace, crew battling exhaustion, water in the tank low, oil cans almost empty, and out of ties to throw on the tracks or bust up for fuel, the raiders begin throwing anything that will burn on to the General's fire to keep the engine moving ... splinters of wood, the oil cans, secret dispatches, saddlebags, even Andrews' hat goes into the fire (at the same time, hoping to set one of the small bridges ahead on fire, the last boxcar is offered up for conflagration, but due to the pouring rain, the boxcar fails to catch on fire). Everyone now in the engine's cab or on the tender, a quick council of war is called by Andrews of the men with the engine, and the decision is made that the twenty raiders will have the best chance if they all separate and flee into the countryside, making their way north as best as they can. On an uphill grade two miles north of the depot at Ringgold, the General finally slows to a stop, and as Andrews gives his final orders to his men ("Jump off and scatter! Every man for himself!") the raiders disappear into the woods, with Knight and Brown being the last two men to flee (they have stayed behind to reverse the General back down the grade so she will collide with the Texas, but the steam remaining in the locomotive's boiler won't even allow for that ending of the chase. As he has been all day, out front is Fuller, who jumps off the Texas and holding his shotgun, goes off into the woods looking for raiders, as a few minutes later the Catoosa arrives and Confederate troops join the hunt. It is a little past 1:00 in the afternoon when the chase ends ... the Northerners have run the General roughly 89 miles from Big Shanty in a little over six hours, pursued by the Texas, running backwards, over the final fort-eight miles of the chase (the General, determined to be fine after a quick inspection by Murphy, is coupled to the Texas and run back into Ringgold.
Scattering
Memorial To Where The Chase Ended
Countryside in an uproar, the woods filled with Confederate soldiers, lawmen, and armed civilians of the region, within two weeks all the raiders are captured, including the two that missed the train at Big Shanty. Captured one by one, in chains, the Northerners are thrown into the nightmarish basement hole (a 13-foot-square hole that is also 13-feet high, can only be accessed through trap door and down a ladder, doesn't have enough room within for everyone to lie down, without ventilation, grows hot and fetid, and the men are fed twice a day on spoiled beef or pork, crumbs of cornbread, and watery cane-seed coffee) of Chattanooga's jail, at the mercy of its head man, a sixty-two year-old monster named Swims. Each man caught is brought before a court-martial on charges of sabotage, being a spy, and "acts of unlawful belligerency." Though well represented by one of the most famous men in Chattanooga, politician, businessman, and lawyer, The Honorable Reese B. Brabson, Andrews is the first to go on trial, is found guilty, and sentenced to be hung on June 7, 1862 (by this time the Confederates have separated the men into two groups, one of twelve men, goes to Knoxville for their trials, while the balance of the raiders remain in the Chattanooga jail, where they are given cells above their former basement hell). The Chattanooga group has other plans for their leader however, and on the first night of June, using a penknife, blankets tied together, and lots of ingenuity (the noise created by breaking through the trap door is masked by the men singing songs), the group manages to get Andrews and Private John Wollam out of the jail (the men almost instantly become separated). Recaptured hiding on Williams Island in the Tennessee River, Andrews is put back in chains, thrown back in the hole he escaped from, and as sentenced, brought by train down the tracks of the W&A to Atlanta (in fear that a rescue attempt might be made by units of General Mitchel's command), and on a beautiful, sunny Saturday afternoon, the smuggler from Kentucky is hung, but not gracefully. When Andrews is dropped, the rope stretches, and the raider commander's feet are able to find the ground until a provost guardsman pushes him from his precarious perch, while another digs beneath his feet to prevent them from finding the ground again, eventually the man strangles to death (hearing the news in Flemingsburg, Kentucky, his fiancé, Elizabeth Layton, grows distraught and her health falls apart, killing her of what her family calls, "a broken heart," two years later), Body cut down from the gibbet, Andrews, with his ankles still cuffed and chained, is placed in a cheap wooden coffin, carried about forty yards away, and put in a pre-dug hole under a pine tree (later the body will be moved to a resting spot at the Chattanooga National Cemetery on October 16, 1887, where it rests beneath a monument erected to the memory of the raid that is paid for by the citizens of the state of Ohio). And the future is grim for other raiders too.
The Chattanooga Jail
Into The Hole
Wollam
Execution Site In Atlanta
Andrews Resting Spot
Eventually, all the raiders are found guilty and sentenced to death, and the two groups of men are reunited at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, but not for long. On Wednesday, June 18th, the names of the men convicted in Knoxville, William Campbell, Samuel Robertson, Marion A. Ross, John Scott, Perry G. Shadrach, Samuel Slavens, and George D. Wilson (six soldiers and the civilian who volunteered to participate in the raid, Campbell) are called out and told they are to be executed that same day (the rebels not wanting anymore escapes to deal with). After spiritual comfort is given to the men by two local ministers, the group is allowed to say their goodbyes to the rest of the imprisoned raiders, then the men are trussed up and under military guard, driven three-quarters of a mile in a cart to the city cemetery. Noosed to a crude scaffold, after George Wilson uses his opportunity to say his last words (he gives a speech that has many in the throng calling for the executions to be called off), at a signal from provost marshal, Captain G.J. Foreacre, the seven men are dropped in unison, but two, Campbell and Slavens break their ropes in the plunge. Trussed up again, the second drop is successful in sending the men off into eternity (the bodies are first buried at the cemetery, but will later be exhumed and placed at the Chattanooga National Cemetery). Seeing what their fate will probably be, the surviving raiders put together an escape plan that they put in motion on October 15, 1862, overpowering the seven guards on duty, their efforts supplemented by other prisoners the northerners let in on the break. Of the fourteen raiders remaining in custody (by this time Wollam, who escaped with Andrews, has been caught and returned to captivity with his comrades), eight will eventually make it back to Northerner lines ... Porter and Wollam make it to the command of 31-year-old Brigadier General Grenville Dodge (the future chief engineer of the Union Pacific Railroad and namesake of the wild town of Dodge City, Kansas) at Corinth, Tennessee, Dorsey and Hawkins take over a month to reach Lebanon, Tennessee, Knight and Brown make their way through three hundred miles of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains in 47 days before arriving at the Federal lines near Somerset, Kentucky, and Wilson and Wood go on a boat ride down the Chattahoochee River where they are finally rescued on Apalachicola Bay in the Gulf of Mexico by the USS Somerset (a 521-ton sidewheel steamer of six guns and a crew of 110 souls, captained by 24-year-old Navy Academy graduate, Lt. Commander Alexander F. Crosman) on blockade duty.
Court-Martial
Robertson & Ross
Scott & Slavens
Hanging The Seven
Grenville Dodge
The six raiders remaining in custody, Bensinger, Buffum, Mason, Parrott, Pittenger, and Reddick fearfully await retribution both for the original raid on the W&A railroad and the prisoner escape, but instead are left alone to become bargaining chips as the Civil War grows bloodier and bloodier. Finally, on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1863, the six men and 300 other Union prisoners are exchanged for a like number of Confederates. Brought to Washington D.C., the six men make their report on the train raid and their captivity before being taken to see Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, where they become the first soldiers to win the new American award for valor ... the Congressional Medal of Honor (because he receives the worst treatment during his captivity and bears the scars of taking a hundred lashes on his back to give information to his captors, the youngest raider, Private Jacob Wilson Parrott, gets the very first Medal of Honor, and an offer from Stanton to send the farmer to West Point if he is interested ... he isn't.). The men also receive $100 each in spending money from Stanton, offers of promotions to the rank of lieutenant upon their return to the army, and immediate sixty-day furloughs to see family and friends back in Ohio on the government's dime. Eventually, most of the other men that participated in the raid also are awarded the Medal of Honor (amazingly, all of the surviving raiders will also survive returning to their units and the bloody horrors left of over two more years of civil war) ... Andrews and Campbell are never honored because of their civilian status, Samuel Llewellyn gets no award because he was captured before the raid took place, Charles Shadrack, one of the raiders hung, is voted the Medal by Congress in 2008, but thus far the honor has not been officially given yet, and George Wilson, also hung, remains in the same limbo as is Shadrack.
Pittenger, Mason And Reddick
Shadrack & Wilson
Parrott And The First Medal Of Honor
Pittenger, Mason And Reddick
The war ends in April of 1865, but the raiders never forget the wild adventure of their youths (nor do their pursuers). The first reunion of the men takes place at Columbus, Ohio in 1888 (Pittenger, a reverend after the war, will write a book about the raid called "Daring and Suffering," which eventually is reissued under the title, "The Great Locomotive Chase"), while the last comes forty-four years after the raid, when Porter, Knight, Parrott, Bensinger, and Dorsey meet in Chattanooga, Tennessee in front of the cemetery tribute to the men of Ohio and the General (also present are former adversary Murphy, and Fuller's son, William A. Fuller) on September 19, 1906. Already kept alive by way of magazine articles and books, the raid receives more interest in 1926, when comedian Buster Keaton tweaks the story into a film which many consider to be a work of genius, and the finest comedy of the silent era of film making, "The General" (filmed in Oregon). And the tale gets the Walt Disney treatment in 1956 (when that still meant family entertainment), when a bowdlerized version of Pittenger's book is filmed starring Davey Crockett star, Fess Parker, as Andrews, and Jeffrey Hunter as Fuller.
Last Reunion - L to R Front - Porter, Knight, Parrott, Murphy, Dorsey
L to R Behind - Besinger & Haney
Keaton
1956
As for the locomotives involved ... Yonah serves as a draw for business customers in Atlanta before eventually being sold for scrap, one week after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, the William R. Smith is destroyed during a raid on the railroad hub of Columbus, Georgia by Federal Cavalry under the command of General James H. Wilson (along with fourteen other locomotives). The two major adversaries though are more fortunate. The Texas survives the war and continues working in Georgia until being retired in 1907. Refurbished by artist and historian Wilbur G. Kurtz in 1936, the locomotive becomes part of Atlanta's Cyclorama, where with a lawsuit going the way of the state of Georgia, it can still be seen and visited. Though ordered destroyed during General John Bell Hood's withdrawal from Atlanta, the General survives, is repaired, and serves in various capacities for Southern railroad lines until being retired in 1891. It's life far from over, from then until the present, it is displayed at a Chattanooga reunion of the Army of the Cumberland (1892), goes to Chicago for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, enhances the Chattanooga Union Depot in 1901 (it will reside there for almost fifty years), is taken to Baltimore in 1927 to be part of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad's "Fair of the Iron Horse," is in Chicago again in 1933 for the city's "Century of Progress" Exhibition, goes to the New York World's Fair (1939), and to Chicago again in 1948 for yet another celebratory fair. Spruced up and pretty, the General participates in the 1961 Centennial of the American Civil War, and it makes another World's Fair visit to New York in 1964. Fighting for possession of the valuable historical artifact breaks out in the 1960's between the town of Chattanooga and the town of Kennesaw (formerly Big Shanty) and the case eventually arrives on the docket of the United States Supreme Court, which finds that the locomotive still belongs to its original owners, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad which had acquired the rights to W & A assets in 1957. Back to the home that made her famous, the locomotive can be visited at Kennesaw's Museum of Civil War & Locomotive History, Tuesdays through Saturdays, for a small fee.
The Texas On Display
The General At War's End
The General Comes Home
The General On Display
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