In mid-October they heard a rumor from their jailer that they too would be tried, and on October 16 they staged a mass breakout from their Atlanta prison. But the fact that while waiting he burned a rail bridge in front of him suggests that he had already abandoned any hope of seizing Chattanooga by a bold, For the raiders, what an Atlanta newspaper headlined as “The Most Extraordinary and Astounding Adventure of the War” was far from ended when they abandoned the, Privates Alf Wilson and Mark Wood developed the best cover story of all, claiming that. Due to the confusion in Chattanooga, the conductor told Andrews, the trailing southbound passenger train was running half an hour late. At this point the Yankees suddenly spotted the smoke of a pursuing train. Walt’s adopted hometown of Marceline, Missouri, contacted him that year. As The General, a legendary steam engine from the American Civil War, disappears into the distance, Petra and Kipp join a small group of determined men in pursuit, and The Great Locomotive Chase begins. Their objective, said Andrews, was to burn enough bridges behind them to cripple the Western & Atlantic, then ride their stolen train right on through Chattanooga and westward on the Memphis & Charleston to meet General Mitchel’s division, which meanwhile would have pushed southward across the Tennessee border to Huntsville, Alabama. (The Yankees believed it was simply the last train they had passed; “If we’d been told the full story, we would have thought it too wild and improbable to believe,” Pittenger remarked.) But the fact that while waiting he burned a rail bridge in front of him suggests that he had already abandoned any hope of seizing Chattanooga by a bold coup de main . Eight of the raiders, including Pittenger, manage to escape while the rest are recaptured. “Good-bye, Dorsey!” “Dorsey, you’re a goner!” And a final shot from the next tent: “Leave us a lock of your hair, Dorsey!”. Balked by the torn-up track, Puller had to abandon the Rome engine and for the third time that morning dash northward on foot. He had been a passenger on the train they commandeered. At the time, the standard means of capturing Chattanooga would have been its encirclement. Digital Sheet Music - View Online and Print On-Demand. Obstructions there were. Entinger, Rosemary, ”The Great Locomotive Chase”. Andrews shows Fuller a letter from Brigadier General Beauregard. That morning, they learned, Federal troops had seized Huntsville. According to Pittenger, he remarked to his fellow prisoners, “Boys, I have often thought I’d like to see what’s on the other side of Jordan.” Late in April, Andrews was tried as a spy by a military court in Chattanooga, and on May 31-after a review by Secretary of War Leroy P. Walker and President Jefferson Davis- the verdict was announced. All of them wore civilian clothes and were armed with pistols. The chase comes to a head as Fuller catches up while the Confederate Cavalry heads them off from the north. I thought I should tell his bride that there was no chance of her changing him so during the speech I gave them the DVD's of The Great Locomotive Chase. In March, 1863, the six raiders still in Confederate hands were exchanged. There he halted, apparently to await the arrival of his raiding party. On April 12, 1862, a group of Union sympathizers stole a Confederate train, leading to a daring eight-hour chase. “I can’t describe my feelings at that moment…,” Porter would recall. “When our strength was nearly gone, we hove in sight of Etowah, and to our great delight the engine was there.” The little Yonah was nothing much as locomotives went, but it was a vast improvement over the pole car. Pittenger then thanks Stanton on behalf of all of the raiders, ending the film. If the tale of the Great Locomotive Chase has a turning point, it was reached here along this deserted stretch of the Western & Atlantic just north of Calhoun, approximately halfway between Big Shanty and Chattanooga. How this development would affect the mission Andrews could only guess. Three of the men-Wilson Brown, Martin Hawkins, and William Knight-were sought out specifically because of their civilian occupations as railroaders. In temperment, he wrote, Andrews “delighted in strategy” rather than “the plain course of a straight outand-out fight with the pursuing train.” The, Andrews’ delight in strategy was soon evident. Fuller simply shunted the two cars off at Resaca and continued northward. Be that as it may, the Yankees’ gallant failure was not redeemed by any action on General Mitchel’s part. Jeff Yorkas William Campbell, Union soldier ("worth ten in a fight"){actually Campbell was a civilian volunteer} But we were young then, and youth takes chances that are appalling to old age.” At one point near Tilton on a straight stretch of track the Yankees managed to lengthen their lead enough to stop for badly needed wood and water. They were Privates Samuel Robertson, Perry G. Shadrach, Samuel Slavens, and George D. Wilson, Sergeant-Major Marion A. Ross, Sergeant John Scott, and William Campbell, the civilian who had joined the expedition at the last minute. Some forty-five minutes before the Georgians piled aboard the Yonah , the Yankee raiders had reached Kingston and backed onto the station siding to await the southbound freight due momentarily. That, at any rate, was Pittenger’s view. The Great Locomotive Chase The General LocomotiveThe American Civil War is without doubt the most studied, talked about, disputed, scrutinized, and unforgettable event since the gavel dropped at the Continental Congress when our forefathers told King George III that it was all over between us Americans and his British monarchy. A West Pointer, he had resigned from the army in the 1830's to pursue a varied career that included teaching astronomy and mathematics, practicing law, and building railroads. “To be shut up in the dark, while for all we knew the enemy might be concentrating an overwhelming force against us, was exceedingly trying. The raiders were meanwhile pushing hard for Adairsville, ten miles north of Kingston, where two more scheduled southbound trains were to be passed. The “Great Locomotive Chase” had begun. Losing Chattanooga would be disaster heaped on top of misfortune. At Calhoun, they too bypassed the southbound passenger train, stopping only long enough to spread the alarm among the local militia. American Civil War: Great Locomotive Chase Background. The first edition, 1863, and the edition of 1887 were published under the title: Daring and suffering; another edition, 1881, with title: Capturing a locomotive. Fuller, who was now fighting mad, set out for Etowah station, where a branch track from the Cooper Iron Works angled into the main line. They plan to escape the next morning. With them went conductor William Alien Fuller, engineer Jeff Cain, and the foreman of the W & A’s machine shops, Anthony Murphy, who was along on an inspection trip. Taking advantage of his brief lead, he ordered the last boxcar uncoupled, reversed the General , and sent the car hurtling back down the track. "[9] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "Despite the lack of inventive incident, the story has a number of tense sequences, without, perhaps, rivalling the pace and gusto of Davy Crockett. That, at any rate, was Pittenger’s view. Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway, Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History, Roll Jordan Roll, I Want To Go To Heaven When I Die, Steamlocomotive.com - B&O Railroad Museum, "Screen: Saga of Rails; 'The Great Locomotive Chase' at Mayfair", Georgia Constitutional Convention of 1861, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Great_Locomotive_Chase&oldid=1013614265, Films scored by Paul Smith (film and television composer), Georgia (U.S. state) in the American Civil War, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Leonard P. Geer as James A. Wilson (as Lennie Geer), Union soldier, Marc Hamilton as John Wollam, Union soldier, John Wiley as John M. Scott, Union soldier. Expressing a cold fury he no doubt deeply felt, Andrews ordered the freight to move on down the main track so that the extra train, when it arrived, would not block his powder train. As Corporal William Pittenger remembered it, Andrews summed up their mission by saying, “Boys, we’re going into danger, but for results that can be tremendous.”, When the party started toward Chattanooga, it ran into immediate trouble with the weather. With the General out of wood and water and unable to continue, Andrews decides to stop and fight. When James eventually got married in 2012 I did the best man's speech (James was my best man in 1981). More to the story will be coming, but if you can join Barb and I, it will be a very fun day! Porters were instructed to wake them before dawn. Big Shanty lacked a telegraph station, so there was no way to send a warning up the line, but that did not deter conductor Fuller. Heading off in all directions to confuse pursuit, they eventually reached Federal forces in such widely scattered places as central Tennessee; Corinth, Mississippi; Lebanon, Kentucky; and Apalachicola, Florida. On Monday evening, April 7, Andrews briefed his twenty-three volunteers. Inspired by a Civil War-era train chase, this programmatic work depicts what became known as "the boldest adventure of the war." Andrews and the men continue on, pulling up track to block any trains from the south and cutting telegraph wires to stop any towns ahead of them from being alerted. The Andrews party would later blame their failure on the one-day delay in executing the mission. There he halted, apparently to await the arrival of his raiding party. In 1956, the General was on display at Chatanooga Union Station, and the Texas was at the Atlanta Cyclorama. Now, from his advanced base at Shelbyville, he could look southward and see great opportunities beckoning. The Great Locomotive Chase Robert W. Smith - Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. You'll love this fascinating and exciting work by the talented Robert W. Smith that brings the thrill of America's history alive! If questioned at any point, they were to say they were Yankeehating Kentuckians on their way to enlist in the Confederate army. As soon as the lieutenant was out of earshot, the catcalls began. Without maps or compasses, most of Andrews’ men wandered aimlessly, and one after another they were stopped and questioned-and seized. "Tenting On the Old Camp Ground"—classic Civil War hymn sung by Fess Parker, Jeff York, John Lupton, et al. The Yankees took seats in one of these coaches, according to Dorsey, “in a sleepy, drowsy manner … indifferent to all surroundings.” Again the count was two short. They were impressed by Andrews’ appearance and bearing. Two days later, however, Andrews was retaken (Wollam evaded capture for a month) and on June 7 the leader of the raiders was taken to a gallows a block from Peachtree Street in Atlanta and hanged. Kennesaw is a historic town; a free walking tour brochure available at the museum points out 32 historic sites. He had no reason to doubt that the track ahead was clear. They made it to the Tennessee River east of Chattanooga, stole a canoe, and floated all the way down the river past Chattanooga to Stevenson, Alabama, where they expected to find Federal troops. An immense Federal naval force was at the mouth of the Mississippi, threatening New Orleans. Its locomotive was the powerful woodburner, When the train pulled into Big Shanty at 6:45, Redoubling their efforts, the pursuers twice rounded curves only to be hurled off the track where the raiders had lifted rails. All seven were found guilty, brought to Atlanta, and sentenced to death. Of the quality and tenacity of the pursuit he knew nothing. Within minutes Fuller, Cain, and Murphy had steam up and were pounding along at full throttle for Kingston, fourteen miles away. One day, while in their cell in Atlanta, one of them manages to break the group's chains. The farmers themselves formed posses and with shotguns and butcher knives and tracking dogs tramped across the fields and woodlands, corralling any stranger they encountered. Andrews laments that he won't live to see the end of the war, when both sides come together and shake hands. Perhaps it was simply the man’s make-up. According to a review by Bosley Crowther of The New York Times, "The excitement is over when they abandon the trains. The museum is the permanent home of the locomotive The General, and contains hundreds of artifacts connected to Great Locomotive Chase, as well as an 18-minute video and a full documentation on the role that railroads played in the war. The Great Locomotive Chase. He was known to the Confederate high command for his earlier smuggling of medicines into the South, and it was now obvious that he was a double agent. They had to reach the next station, Calhoun, before the Chattanooga train did or they would be hopelessly blocked. “Someone is moving your engine!” he shouted to conductor Fuller. Near Resaca, five miles north of Calhoun, was a long trestle over the Oostanaula River, one of the raiders’ prime targets. Financed and owned by the state of Georgia, the W & A was one of the best-run roads in the South. As his men drifted into the depot to await the southbound evening train, he discovered the count was two short. Above Resaca the Western & Atlantic wound tortuously through rough country, forcing the Confederates aboard the pursuing Texas to proceed carefully, alert for obstructions and ambushes. Description: Inspired by the events surrounding the railway between Atlanta and Chattanooga during the early years of the Civil War, Robert W. Smith stages the train chase complete with fascinating textures and effects. Read about The Great Locomotive Chase by Robert W. Smith and see the artwork, lyrics and similar artists. At Chattanooga it tied into a line from Lynchburg, Virginia, and with the Memphis & Charleston from Memphis. The film reteamed him with Jeff York, who had portrayed Mike Fink in the 1954-1955 Davy Crockett miniseries. Fifty feet away, sentries at a large Confederate training camp watched the strange performance in puzzlement. As of March 2021, the two surviving locos from the chase, and the three which appeared in the film, were located as follows: The film received mixed reviews upon its release.