2nd , 21st , and 33rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment
72-671: Western and Atlantic Railroad The Great Locomotive Chase (a portion of the Andrews' Raid or the Mitchel Raid ) was a military raid that occurred April 12, 1862, in northern Georgia during the American Civil War . Volunteers from the Union Army , led by civilian scout James J. Andrews , commandeered a train, The General , and took it northward toward Chattanooga, Tennessee , doing as much damage as possible to
144-690: A bill which would retroactively award the Medal of Honor to two of the three remaining raiders, Charles Perry Shadrack and George Davenport Wilson. On July 3, 2024, President Joe Biden posthumously presented the medal to descendants of both Shadrack and Wilson. All the Medals of Honor presented to the Andrews Raiders used identical text. Citation: One of the 19 of 22 men (including 2 civilians) who, by direction of Gen. Mitchell (or Buell) penetrated nearly 200 miles south into enemy territory and captured
216-749: A compatible gauge of 4 ft 9 in ( 1,448 mm ). The General and many other locomotives were also re-gauged at this time. Aside from a few track realignments by the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway , the W&;A has changed little since 1862. The most significant changes were realignment during the creation of Lake Allatoona , with the tracks through Allatoona Pass removed. The Etowah River bridge has also been replaced. The famed Chetoogeta Mountain Tunnel in Tunnel Hill, Georgia ,
288-427: A determined pursuer, even on foot, could conceivably have caught up with the train before it reached Chattanooga. At Etowah, the raiders passed the older and smaller locomotive Yonah which was on a siding that led to the nearby Cooper Iron Works. Andrews considered stopping to attack and destroy that locomotive so it could not be used by pursuers, but given the size of its work party (even though unarmed) relative to
360-408: A few miles from Chattanooga. After the chase, Andrews and most of his raiders were caught. After they were found guilty, Andrews and seven members of his party were executed by hanging . Of the remaining 14 raiders, several escaped and made it back to US Army lines and the remainder were exchanged as prisoners of war. These men were the first soldiers to be awarded the Medal of Honor. When the chase
432-595: A month, and rising annually thereafter. After being captured by the Union in mid-1864 and until the end of the war in 1865, the line was briefly operated by the United States Military Railroad . Trains departed from Atlanta at 8:50 a.m. and 7 p.m. and arrived there at 1:35 a.m. and 1:15 p.m. Not much has happened in between 1867 and now, track realignments in some areas resulted in height clearances and track improvements. On
504-400: A portion of the profits from the state-owned Western & Atlantic, to help fund the schools. Most planters did not support public education and paid for private tutors and academies for their children. That resistance, and inadequate railroad income, initially thwarted governor Brown's education reform efforts. The Western and Atlantic Railroad was mismanaged at the time, and unable to produce
576-554: A rail to halt the Texas . Destroying the railway behind the hijacked train was a slow process. The raiders were too few in number and were too poorly equipped with the proper railway track tools and demolition equipment, and the rain that day made it difficult to burn the bridges. As well, railway officials in Chattanooga had sufficient time to evacuate engines and rolling stock to the south, hauling critical railroad supplies away from
648-612: A railroad train at Big Shanty, Ga., in an attempt to destroy the bridges and tracks between Chattanooga and Atlanta. Both The General and The Texas survived the war and have been preserved in museums. The General is located at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History , in Kennesaw, Georgia, close to where the chase began. The Texas is at the Atlanta History Center . The first account of
720-665: A route bypassing Chattanooga) in 1972 where it was placed in the Big Shanty Museum . The Texas was renamed Cincinnati and was retired shortly after the turn of the century, and was stored on a siding. In 1911, it was moved to Grant Park and later placed in the Atlanta Cyclorama . Prior to the Civil War, the rail gauge of most railroads in the South were 5 ft ( 1,524 mm ) broad gauge . In 1886,
792-405: A stake into the ground near what is now Forsyth and Magnolia Streets. The zero milepost was later placed at that spot. In 1842, the zero milepost was moved to a spot immediately adjacent to the current southern entrance to Underground Atlanta . The area developed into a settlement, known as "Terminus", literally meaning "end of the line". In 1843, the small settlement of Terminus was incorporated as
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#1732781073329864-592: A train engineer in Atlanta was willing to defect to the Union with his train, if Andrews could supply a volunteer train crew to assist running the train, tearing up track, and burning bridges. The main target was the railway bridge at Bridgeport, Alabama , although future Andrews Raider William Pittenger believed Andrews also intended to target several other bridges in Georgia and Tennessee. The volunteers for this first raid all came from General Mitchel's division, which
936-400: A train just north of Atlanta at Big Shanty, Georgia (now Kennesaw ). They chose Big Shanty because they thought Big Shanty did not have a telegraph office and the stop would also be used to refuel and take on water for the steep grade further north. The raid began on April 12, 1862, when the regular morning passenger train from Atlanta, with the locomotive General , stopped for breakfast at
1008-680: Is a railroad line leased by CSX Transportation in the U.S. states of Tennessee and Georgia. The line runs from Chattanooga to Marietta, Georgia for a total of 119.1 miles (191.7 km). At its north end, it continues south from the Chattanooga Subdivision of the Nashville Division and at its south end it continues south as the Atlanta Terminal Subdivision (Chart A). This line, originally built to 5 ft ( 1,524 mm ) gauge ,
1080-653: Is a scale model of the General on top of the monument, and a brief history of the Great Locomotive Chase. The General is now in the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History , Kennesaw, Georgia, while the Texas is on display at the Atlanta History Center . One marker indicates where the chase began, near the Big Shanty Museum (now known as Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History) in Kennesaw, while another shows where
1152-730: Is famous because of the Great Locomotive Chase , also referred to as Andrews' raid, which took place on the W&A during the American Civil War on the morning of April 12, 1862. In 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western & Atlantic Railroad of the State of Georgia to provide a link between the port of Savannah and the Midwest . The initial route of that state-sponsored project
1224-578: Is loosely based on Pittenger's memoirs. In 1956, Walt Disney Productions released the dramatic film The Great Locomotive Chase , also based on Pittenger's memoirs, starring Fess Parker as Andrews and Jeffrey Hunter as Fuller and filmed on the Tallulah Falls Railway in North Carolina. Walt Disney , who personally supervised parts of the production, also rented the 4-4-0 locomotives William Mason to play The General ,
1296-625: The Inyo to play The Texas , and Lafayette to play The Yonah . The same year, Dell published a paperback original movie tie-in , The Great Locomotive Chase by MacLennan Roberts, "Based on the Walt Disney Production and on authentic Civil War documents", according to the cover blurb . Since at least 1979, the city of Adairsville has held The Great Locomotive Chase Festival , a three-day festival in October which commemorates
1368-546: The 2nd , 21st , and 33rd Ohio Infantry . Andrews instructed the men to arrive in Marietta, Georgia , by midnight of April 10, but heavy rain caused a one-day delay. They traveled in small parties in civilian attire to avoid arousing suspicion. All but two (Samuel Llewellyn and James Smith) reached the designated rendezvous point at the appointed time. Llewellyn and Smith joined a Confederate artillery unit, as they had been instructed to do in such circumstances. Andrews' proposal
1440-523: The General by foot and handcar . At Emerson, Georgia , Fuller commandeered the Yonah and rode it north to Kingston, Georgia . At Kingston, conductor Fuller got the William R. Smith and headed north to Adairsville . The tracks were broken by the raiders two miles (3.2 km) south of Adairsville and Fuller had to run the two miles on foot. At Adairsville, Fuller got the locomotive Texas and chased
1512-407: The General . While all of this was happening, Andrews' Raiders were cutting the telegraph wires so no transmissions could go through to Chattanooga. With the Texas chasing the General in reverse, the chase went through Dalton, Georgia , and Tunnel Hill, Georgia . At milepost 116.3 (north of Ringgold, Georgia ), Andrews' Raiders abandoned the General and scattered from the locomotive just
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#17327810733291584-483: The Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis (NC&StL) leased it for 29 years. The railroad that was handed over to the NC&;StL was in very poor condition. The locomotives that were transferred consisted only of those listed on the 1870 lease as property of the State, with all of the more modern engines purchased under Gov. Brown's Western & Atlantic Railroad Company having been sold to other railroads. While most of
1656-562: The Southeastern United States from Atlanta , Georgia , to Chattanooga , Tennessee . It was founded on December 21, 1836. The city of Atlanta was founded as the terminus of the W&A, with the terminus marked with the Atlanta Zero Mile Post . The line is still owned by the State of Georgia from Atlanta to CT Tower in Chattanooga; it is leased by CSX Transportation . The W&A Subdivision
1728-675: The Tennessee River . Buell departed, leaving a 7,000-man garrison in Nashville along with Maj. Gen. Ormsby Mitchel 's 10,000-man 3rd Division. Mitchel had earlier assisted in the capture of Nashville and accepted the surrender of the city. With the withdrawal of both Confederate and Union forces towards western Tennessee, central Tennessee became an economy of force operation. Facing minimal Confederate resistance, Mitchel moved his division southeast out of Nashville on March 18 towards Murfreesboro , arriving on March 20. James J. Andrews
1800-574: The 1930s. In 1962, 100 years after the chase, the L&;N performed work necessary to allow the locomotive to operate under her own power for a series of appearances marking the 100th anniversary of the Andrews Raid. The premier appearance was her run from Atlanta to Chattanooga over the Western & Atlantic Railroad. After this run, the General would make excursion trips on various rail lines across
1872-472: The Andrews Raiders stayed the night before commandeering The General . There is a historical marker in downtown Atlanta, at the corner of 3rd and Juniper streets, at the site where Andrews was hanged. Western and Atlantic Railroad The Western & Atlantic Railroad of the State of Georgia ( W&A ) is a railroad owned by the State of Georgia and currently leased by CSX , which CSX operates in
1944-519: The Family Lines System and later CSX Transportation, which continues to operate the line as the Western & Atlantic Subdivision. CSXT signed the current lease on the W&A from the State of Georgia in May 1986, set to expire on December 31, 2019. On Sept 7th, 2018, the owner and CSX announced they had reached an agreement to renew the lease for 50 more years, starting in 2020 at $ 1 million
2016-519: The Gulf of Mexico. The remaining six were held as prisoners of war and exchanged for Confederate prisoners on March 17, 1863. On March 20, the recently released raiders arrived in Washington DC, and the following day Pittenger wrote a letter to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton detailing their mission to Georgia. On March 24, they were interviewed by Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt , who
2088-511: The Lacy Hotel. They took the General and the train's three boxcars , which were behind the tender in front of the passenger cars. The passenger cars were left behind. Andrews had previously obtained from the work crew a crowbar for tearing up track. The train's conductor , William Allen Fuller , and two other men, chased the stolen train, first on foot, then by a handcar belonging to a work crew shortly north of Big Shanty. Locomotives of
2160-560: The Ohio army and making it the first Confederate state capital to fall to the Union. After taking Nashville, Buell showed little inclination for further offensive operations, especially towards the pro-Union region of East Tennessee . On March 11, Buell's army was merged into the new Department of the Mississippi under General Henry Halleck. In late March, Halleck ordered Buell southwest to reinforce Grant's army near Pittsburg Landing on
2232-527: The Union base at Nashville, which would seize and sever the Memphis & Charleston Railroad between Memphis and Chattanooga (at the time there were no other railway links between the Mississippi river and the east) and then capture the water and railway junction of Chattanooga , Tennessee, thereby severing the Western Confederacy's contact with both the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys. At
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2304-419: The Union threat, so as to prevent their either being captured by General Mitchel or trapped uselessly inside Chattanooga during a Union siege of the city. With the Texas still chasing the General tender-first, the two trains steamed through Dalton and Tunnel Hill . The raiders continued to sever the telegraph wires, but they were unable to burn bridges or damage Tunnel Hill. The wood they had hoped to burn
2376-547: The Union-held stronghold and supply depot of Nashville, Tennessee . James J. Andrews , still a civilian scout and part-time spy, proposed another daring raid to Mitchel that would destroy the Western and Atlantic Railroad as a useful reinforcement and supply link to Chattanooga from Atlanta and the rest of Georgia. He recruited the men known later as the Andrews Raiders. These were the civilian William Hunter Campbell and 22 volunteer Union soldiers from three Ohio regiments:
2448-546: The ceremony the six raiders were taken to the White House to meet President Abraham Lincoln , which became a tradition for all Medal of Honor recipients. Later, all but three of the other soldiers who had participated in the raid also received the Medal of Honor, with posthumous awards to families for those who had been executed. As civilians, Andrews and Campbell were not eligible. In 2008, the House of Representatives passed
2520-493: The change to the Northern standard gauge of 4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ( 1,435 mm ) was mandated on June 1, and the W&A accomplished this along all 138 miles (222 km) in less than 24 hours, beginning at 1:30 p.m. on May 31 and finishing at 10 a.m. the next morning. This was done by over 400 men, prying up one rail and moving it closer to the other by exactly 3 inches (76 mm), leaving
2592-559: The chase ended at Milepost 116.3, north of Ringgold – not far from the recently restored depot at Milepost 114.5 . Historic sites along the 1862 chase route include the following: Kennesaw House, 21 Depot St. (c. 1845), a hotel on the L&N railway in Marietta, Georgia , is a contributing building in the Northwest Marietta Historic District . In 1862 this was the Fletcher House hotel where
2664-461: The chase was published a year after the event in 1863 by William Pittenger, one of the Andrews Raiders, under the title of Daring and Suffering . It would be republished in 1881 as Capturing a Locomotive and 1889 as The Great Locomotive Chase . The book was a major success and was widely praised. Two decades later, one newspaper would claim it “was in half the old soldier households in the country.” Buster Keaton 's silent film comedy The General
2736-421: The city of Marthasville . Two years later, by act of Georgia's General Assembly, the city was renamed "Atlanta". The railroad made significant contributions to the development of north Georgia. In 1857, Joseph E. Brown was elected Governor of Georgia . He supported free public education for poor white children, believing that it was key to the development of the state. He asked the state legislature to divert
2808-610: The eastern US through most of the 1960s. In the late 60s, the General was to go to Kennesaw for another appearance when the City of Chattanooga officials halted it. The engine was put in storage in Louisville while a legal battle for its custody ensued. In 1971 the United States District Court confirmed the right of the railroad to dispose of the locomotive as it saw fit and it was moved to Kennesaw, Georgia (via
2880-569: The event. In 2000, composer Robert W. Smith wrote a concert piece named for and inspired by the incident. In 2019, the raid was featured on Comedy Central show Drunk History in the episode "Behind Enemy Lines", narrated by Jon Gabrus , with John Francis Daley portraying Andrews and Martin Starr as Fuller. The Ohio monument dedicated to the Andrews Raiders is located at the Chattanooga National Cemetery . There
2952-551: The exploit, Corporal William Pittenger said that the remaining raiders worried about also being executed. They attempted to escape and eight succeeded. Traveling for hundreds of miles in pairs, the eight made it back safely to Union lines, including two who were aided by slaves and Union sympathizers and two who floated down the Chattahoochee River until they were rescued by the Union blockade vessel USS Somerset in
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3024-481: The facilities, right of way and new equipment purchased for use over that line, including passenger cars, freight cars, and locomotives. As it turned out, the NC&StL continued to hold the lease to the Western & Atlantic Railroad until it was absorbed by its parent company, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, which was itself owned by the Atlantic Coast Line-one of the principal railroads in
3096-469: The governor requested that Lewis keep the resignation a secret. But the resignation letter was leaked to the press, causing a rift between the two old friends. Brown wrote to Lewis saying "I did not deserve this at your hands, and I confess I felt it keenly...I do not attribute improper motives, but only say the coincidence was an unfortunate one for me". Through 1870, it was called the State Road , and
3168-447: The income Brown required to fund his public education proposal. In 1858, Governor Brown appointed John W. Lewis to the position of Superintendent of the state-owned railroad. Lewis had the skills of a successful businessman, and immediately undertook reforms to turn around the failing enterprise. The railroad, said to be in "dire financial straits", required the same strict economic controls Lewis had practiced in his private businesses. In
3240-405: The last train of that sectional movement had passed him. The raiders being delayed at Kingston for over an hour, this gave Fuller all the time he needed to close the distance. The raiders finally pulled out of Kingston only moments before Fuller's arrival. They still managed north of Kingston again to cut the telegraph wire and break a rail. Meanwhile, moving north on the handcar, Fuller had spotted
3312-414: The locomotive Yonah at Etowah and commandeered it, chasing the raiders north all the way to Kingston . There, Fuller switched to the locomotive William R. Smith, which was on a sidetrack leading west to the town of Rome, Georgia , and continued north towards Adairsville . Two miles south of Adairsville, however, the pursuers were stopped by the broken track, forcing Fuller and his party to continue
3384-458: The morning of April 12, 1862, the locomotive General was stopped at Big Shanty, Georgia (now Kennesaw) so that the crew and passengers could have breakfast . During this time, James J. Andrews and his Union raiders (Andrews Raiders), stole the General . The only damage the raiders did involved cutting telegraph lines and raising rails, although an attempt to burn a covered bridge failed. The train's conductor, William A. Fuller , chased
3456-423: The passenger equipment was usable, almost all of the locomotives were condemnable and all of the freight cars were scrapped. The value of the locomotives was disputed for some 20 years. A major change in the new lease in 1890 stipulated that all improvements made to the road by the lessee would become property of the state at the termination of the lease. Included in the definition of improvements were modifications to
3528-603: The pursuit on foot. Beyond the damaged section, he took command of the southbound locomotive Texas south of Calhoun, where Andrews had passed it, running it backwards. The Texas train crew had been bluffed by Andrews at Calhoun into taking the station siding, thereby allowing the General to continue northward along the single-track main line. Fuller, when he met the Texas , took command of her, picked up eleven Confederate troops at Calhoun, and continued his pursuit, tender -first, northward. The raiders now never got far ahead of Fuller and never had enough time to stop and take up
3600-737: The raiders and quickly executed some as spies , including Andrews; some others were able to flee. The surviving raiders were the first to be awarded the newly created Medal of Honor by the US Congress for their actions. As a civilian, Andrews was not eligible. After the Union capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in February, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston withdrew his forces from central Tennessee to reorganize. As part of this withdrawal, Johnston evacuated Nashville on February 23, surrendering this important industrial center to Union Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell 's Department of
3672-562: The situation and hold the line, the Confederates would then launch a counterattack from Chattanooga with the advantage of a local superiority of men and materiel . It was this process that the Andrews raid sought to disrupt. If he could somehow block railroad reinforcement of the city from Atlanta to the southeast, Mitchel could take Chattanooga. The Union Army would then have rail reinforcement and supply lines to its rear, leading west to
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#17327810733293744-447: The size of the raiding party, he judged that any firefight would be too long and too involved, and would alert nearby troops and civilians. As the raiders had stolen a regularly scheduled train on a railroad with only one track, they needed to keep to that train's timetable. If they reached a siding ahead of schedule, they had to wait there until scheduled southbound trains passed them before they could continue north. Andrews claimed to
3816-414: The special train movements southward at the highest priority. Thus delayed at the junction town of Kingston, as the first of the southbound freight evacuation trains approached, Andrews inquired of that train's conductor why his train was carrying a red marker flag on its rear car. Andrews was told that Confederate Railway officials in Chattanooga had been notified by Confederate Army officials that Mitchel
3888-535: The station masters he encountered that his train was a special northbound ammunition movement ordered by General Beauregard in support of his operations against the Union forces threatening Chattanooga. This story was sufficient for the isolated station masters Andrews encountered (as he had cut the telegraph wires to the south), but it had no impact upon the train dispatchers and station masters north of him, whose telegraph lines to Chattanooga were working. These dispatchers were following their orders to dispatch and control
3960-414: The telegraph lines, but successfully pretended to be overworked wiremen. The raiders then returned north to Union lines, arriving about a week after they had departed. Andrews spent several additional days conducting reconnaissance on the Western and Atlantic Railroad before also departing back north to federal lines. None of the original raiders would volunteer for the second raid. One added that "he felt all
4032-514: The three years that Lewis ran the railroad, he was able to turn the business into a money making enterprise, paying $ 400,000 per year into the state treasury. In 1861, Brown was up for re-election to a third term. It was at this time, during the re-election campaign, that Western & Atlantic Railroad Superintendent John Woods Lewis, an old friend of the governor, decided to resign from the railroad. The timing could not have been worse. Fearing that Lewis' resignation would be interpreted negatively,
4104-503: The time he was in the enemy’s country as though he had a rope around his neck." Major General Ormsby M. Mitchel , commanding Federal troops in middle Tennessee , sought a way to contract or shrink the extent of the northern and western borders of the Confederacy by pushing them permanently away from and out of contact with the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. This could be done by first a southward and then an eastward penetration from
4176-412: The time normally averaged 15 miles per hour (24 km/h), with short bursts of speed of about 20 miles per hour (32 km/h). In addition, the terrain north of Atlanta is very hilly, and the ruling grades are steep. Even today, average speeds are rarely greater than 40 miles per hour (64 km/h) between Chattanooga and Atlanta. Since Andrews intended to stop periodically to perform acts of sabotage,
4248-720: The time, the standard means of capturing a city was by encirclement to cut it off from supplies and reinforcements, then would follow artillery bombardment and direct assault by massed infantry. However, Chattanooga's natural water and mountain barriers to its east and south made this nearly impossible with the forces that Mitchel had available. When the Union Army threatened Chattanooga, the Confederate States Army would (from its naturally protected rear) first reinforce Chattanooga's garrison from Atlanta. When sufficient forces had been deployed to Chattanooga to stabilize
4320-725: The two who had missed the hijacking. Mitchell's attack on Chattanooga ultimately failed. Confederate forces charged all the raiders with "acts of unlawful belligerency"; the civilians were charged as unlawful combatants and spies. All the prisoners were tried in military courts, or courts-martial. Tried in Chattanooga, Andrews was found guilty. He was executed by hanging on June 7 in Atlanta. On June 18, seven others who had been transported to Knoxville and convicted as spies were returned to Atlanta and also hanged; their bodies were buried unceremoniously in an unmarked grave. They were later reburied in Chattanooga National Cemetery . Writing about
4392-419: The vital Western and Atlantic Railroad (W&A) line from Atlanta to Chattanooga as they went. They were pursued by Confederate forces at first on foot, and later on a succession of locomotives , including The Texas , for 87 miles (140 km). Because the Union men had cut the telegraph wires, the Confederates could not send warnings ahead to forces along the railway. Confederates eventually captured
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#17327810733294464-566: Was a Kentucky-born civilian serving as a secret agent and scout in Tennessee , for Major General Don Carlos Buell in the spring of 1862. Sometime before Buell departed Nashville in late March, Andrews presented him with a plan to take eight men to steal a train in Georgia , and drive it north. Buell would later confirm in August 1863 that he authorized this expedition. According to Andrews,
4536-505: Was a combined operation; General Mitchel and his forces would first move on Chattanooga; then, the Andrews’ Raid would promptly destroy the rail line between Chattanooga and Atlanta. These essentially simultaneous actions would bring about the capture of Chattanooga. Andrews' Raid was intended to deprive the Confederates of the integrated use of the railways to respond to a Union advance, using their interior lines of communication. The plan
4608-471: Was abandoned in 1928; it was too small to accommodate the larger trains of the era, and a new tunnel was built nearby. A marker indicating where the chase began is near the Big Shanty Museum in Kennesaw, Georgia . A marker for where the chase ended is at Milepost 116.3, north of Ringgold, Georgia , which is not far from the recently restored depot at Milepost 114.5. A monument dedicated to Andrew's Raiders
4680-693: Was able to corroborate details of their mission with testimony from the raiders who had escaped in 1862. On March 25, they were invited to Stanton's office at the Department of War . After a brief conversation, Stanton announced that the raiders would receive the newly approved Medal of Honor . Private Jacob Parrott , who had been physically abused as a prisoner, was awarded the first. The others were Sergeant Elihu H. Mason , Corporals William Pittenger and William H. H. Reddick, and Privates William Bensinger , Wilson Wright Brown, and Robert Buffum . Stanton also offered them all commissions as First Lieutenant. After
4752-575: Was approaching Chattanooga from Stevenson, Alabama, intending to either capture or lay siege to the city, and as a result of this warning, the Confederate Military Railways had ordered the Special Freight movements. The red train marker flag on the southbound train meant that there was at least one additional train behind the one which Andrews had just encountered, and that Andrews had no "authority for movement" until
4824-522: Was encamped at Murfreesboro, Tennessee . Moving south forty miles on foot to the Confederate railhead at Tullahoma , the raiders were then able to travel by train down to Marietta, Georgia . There, Andrews discovered the engineer had been pressed into service elsewhere. Andrews asked if any of the raiders knew how to operate a locomotive; when none did, he called the raid off. Two raiders were also confronted by Confederate soldiers while trying to cut
4896-480: Was operated directly by the state under a superintendent appointed by and reporting to the governor of Georgia . On December 27 of that year, operations were transferred to the Western & Atlantic Railroad Company , a group of 23 investors including Georgia's wartime governor Joseph E. Brown , who leased it (both tracks and rolling stock ) from the state for $ 25,000 per month. This expired 20 years later, when
4968-409: Was over, both engines returned to service. After the "General"'s service with the W&A was over, she retired to the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway Union Depot in Chattanooga. In 1890, the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway overhauled the General and provided the locomotive for public events and to promote the line's Civil War history (to drum up the tourism trade) up through
5040-452: Was soaked by rain. Just before the raiders cut the telegraph wire north of Dalton, Fuller managed to send off a message from there alerting the authorities in Chattanooga of the approaching stolen engine. Finally, at milepost 116.3, north of Ringgold, Georgia , just 18 miles from Chattanooga, with the locomotive out of fuel, Andrews's men abandoned the General and scattered. Andrews and all of his men were caught within two weeks, including
5112-591: Was to run from Chattanooga to a spot east of the Chattahoochee River, in present-day Fulton County. The plan was to eventually link up with the Georgia Railroad from Augusta and the Macon and Western Railroad , which ran from Macon to Savannah. An engineer was chosen to recommend the location where the Western & Atlantic line would terminate. Once he surveyed various possible routes, he drove
5184-702: Was to steal a train on its run north towards Chattanooga, stopping to damage or destroy track, bridges, telegraph wires, and track switches behind them, so as to prevent the Confederate Army from being able to move troops and supplies from Atlanta to Chattanooga. The raiders planned to cross through the Federal siege lines on the outskirts of Chattanooga and rejoin Mitchel's army. Because railway dining cars were not yet in common use, railroad timetables included water, rest, and meal stops. They planned to steal
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