THE CHASE BEGINS: 5.00AM TO 10.00AM
APRIL 12, 1862
ACTIONS OF THE UNION RAIDERS
1 Atlanta–Chattanooga train (known as the General) departs from Marietta at 5.05am.
2 The General arrives at Big Shanty at 5.20am. The raiders steal the train.
3 The raiders borrow a claw bar from a section gang working at Moon’s Station.
4 The raiders cut the telegraph wire and erect a barricade.
5 The raiders dismount from the General, lift a rail and cut the telegraph wire outside of Allatoona.
6 The General crosses the Etowa River at 8.00am and spots the Yonah locomotive on the Etowah railroad.
7 The raiders cut the telegraph wire outside of Carterville and erect two barricades.
8 The raiders collect wood and water for the General at Cass Station.
9 The General is delayed for over one hour at Kingston by three southbound trains. It eventually departs at 9.35am.
10 The raiders erect a barricade and cut the telegraph wire jut North of Kingston.
11 A rail is lifted further outisde of Kingston.
ACTIONS OF THE CONFEDERATE PURSUERS
A The Atlanta–Chattanooga train departs from Atlanta at 4.00am.
B Fuller and Murphy pursue the General on foot. Kendrick is dispatched to Marietta to telegraph Atlanta with the news.
C Fuller and Murphy reach Moon’s Station and continue the pursuit on a handcar.
D The pursuers arm themselves in Acworth.
E The pursuers’ handcar is derailed outside Allatoona. They continue the pursuit on foot again.
F The pursuers commandeer the Yonah locomotive at Etowah and continue the pursuit.
G Fuller commandeers the William R. Smith locomotive at Kingston.
H The William R. Smith is halted outside of Kingston by a lifted rail. Fuller and Murphy continue to Adairsville on foot. The engineer for the William R. Smith replaces the rail and continues.
With a shout of “Big Shanty!” and “Twenty minutes for breakfast,” the conductor would have announced the train’s arrival. The locomotive, known as the General, rolled to a halt in front of the two-story Lacy Hotel, opposite a vast field of white tents. Guards paced along the camp’s perimeter only 50ft from the puffing locomotive.
Camp McDonald was occupied by some 7,000 recruits, mustered the month before, of the 39th–43rd and 52nd Infantry Regiments, Georgia Volunteers as well as the 9th Georgia Infantry Battalion. They were mostly unarmed at this point. The 42nd, by coincidence, was scheduled to depart by rail for Mississippi the following day. It was no doubt disconcerting to the raiders to peer out the windows and see fields covered by tightly packed tents and patrolling guards, even if they only shouldered pikes.
There were fears that part of the crew would remain aboard and that force would have to be applied. But in fact all the crew and most of the passengers hurried off the train and into the hotel. The raiders stayed seated. Pittenger described it as, “… a thrilling moment! Victory or death hung on the next minute!” Others must have felt ice-water in their veins. Andrews, elegantly dressed with a top hat and carrying his saddlebags, nonchalantly walked forward to ensure there was no train ahead on the main line, calmly stepped into the car and gave the word to go.
The final briefing on the night of April 11 in a second-floor Fletcher House guest room where James Andrews detailed each man’s duties. The men caught only a few hours of sleep with three or four to a room. (Pittenger)
Unloading, they wandered forward toward the boxcars. Accounts differ on which side of the train they approached the boxcar, whether the camp or hotel side. They were indifferent to attracting attention now – in just a few moments they would once again be soldiers facing the enemy.
Everyone moved into position. The passenger cars were quietly uncoupled by engineer William Knight. Then he, assistant engineer Wilson Brown, and fireman Alfred Wilson climbed into the General. “Alf” Wilson climbed on to a boxcar and spun the brake wheel. Andrews signaled the other 16 men into the last boxcar and stepped into the General’s cab after throwing the switch on to the main line. Knight cut the conductor’s bell rope, checked the steam pressure, released the tender’s brakes, and opened the steam lever. The men in the boxcar shut the door as defense against musket balls and suddenly felt cut off and blind. Every jerk and jolt of starting up sent alarm through them. It was 110 rail miles to Chattanooga.
As the raiders picked up speed on the rough rails, no doubt their heart rates quickened too. In a matter of hours they hoped to reach their destination covered in glory. The men in the boxcar’s gloom were startled when they suddenly rumbled to a stop. Sliding open the door they were told that the boiler needed stoking; the steam was down. The men were fearful that the delay meant pursuers could catch up with them, but it took only a few minutes to raise the steam pressure. Andrews was unconcerned with pursuit by another train. Atlanta was over 30 miles behind them and Kingston, the next place locomotives could be found, was almost 30 miles ahead. It was about 6.00am.
Before the locomotive thieves could take off at full speed they would have to keep to the scheduled run time of only 16mph. Only one scheduled southbound train was expected in the morning and it should be on a siding in Kingston when they arrived. However, if this train had proceeded south, but there were sidings en route for one train or the other to switch on to. After Kingston they expected to meet a regular freight train and then a passenger one.
They slowed down at Moon’s Station where a section gang under Jackson Bond was working on a siding. Bond was concerned with the early arrival, lack of passenger cars, and the strange faces in the cab. They stopped long enough for Wilson Brown to talk a railhand out of a claw bar to use to pry up rail tracks.
They soon halted again to check the engine and cut the telegraph wire and it was John Scott’s job to scramble up the 20ft pole and drag the wire down. A hacksaw found in the General was used to cut it twice and they took the yards of wire with them to prevent it being spliced back in.8 At the same time they stacked crossties on the track and others pulled down a telegraph pole, adding it to the barricade. Andrews was ecstatic with the progress thus far and exuded confidence. Fortunately, their early departure from Big Shanty put them ahead of schedule.
At Acworth they quickly inspected and oiled the engine, leaving waiting passengers confused on the platform. Speeding through Allatoona, they laughed at startled waiting passengers. However, at that station they spotted a small unidentified yard engine on a siding. To halt its possible use to pursue them they halted outside of Allatoona to cut the wire and pry up a rail. This proved extremely difficult. With only a claw bar and crossties as poor levers they worked at lifting a rail and, while ultimately successful, it was far too time-consuming. They needed more claw or lining bars, tamping picks, and spike mauls. The rail they lifted into a boxcar so it could not be reinstalled, and engineer Knight craftily fixed a red handkerchief on a staff to the cowcatcher. This warned that an “extra” train followed or there was danger on the line behind the train. This would delay sending southbound trains through after the raiders passed.
At 8.00am the General passed over the 620ft-long Etowah River Bridge (320ft-wide river) on its five massive stone pillars. No effort was made to set it on fire. It was not a covered bridge and it was still raining lightly. On the far side was Etowah junction and at the spur switch sat a steamed-up locomotive belonging to the Etowah Manufacturing and Mining Company. The 2½-mile spur led to the Cooper Iron Works, an important source of iron for the South. This old engine was the Yonah. Andrews did not expect it to be there and was unaware even of its existence, despite the many runs he had made on the line. The Yonah was potentially a serious threat and the crew watched the General clicketty-clack past with open curiosity. Railroad men are acutely aware of disrupted schedules and unusual patterns. Engineer Knight suggested to Andrews that “We had better destroy that engine and the bridge with it.”
Andrews may have co
nsidered that Big Shanty was 17 miles behind them and with the rail and telegraph cut there was no chance of word getting to Etowah or beyond. He may also have been attempting to avoid any confrontation that might lead to shooting, as his experience as a spy discouraged overt action. They had bluffed or simply sped their way through to this point and he probably wished to continue the charade as long as possible. He also planned to cut the rail and wire up ahead and then, of course, there would be bridge-burnings. Andrews appears to have been confident that the hardest part of the mission, simply stealing the train, had been accomplished. “It won’t make any difference,” Andrews commented to the other members of the raiding party.
THE GENERAL
The General, the locomotive stolen by Andrews’ raiders, was a design known as the American Standard or “eight-wheeler.” It is not known what “general” she was named after. The 50,000lb locomotive was built to order for the W&ARR in 1855 by the Rogers, Ketchum and Grosvenor Locomotive Works in Paterson, New Jersey for $8,850. She was what is known under the Whyte classification as a 4-4-0, that is, four small forward-leading pilot or pony wheels (two pairs of axles with four wheels), four much larger drive wheels 60in in diameter, and no rear trailing wheels (beneath the cab). The eight-wheel tender had a capacity of 1.75 cords of wood (just under what can be carried in two modern full-size pickup trucks) and 1,750 gallons of water. The General could reach a speed of 60mph and was known on the line as a fast runner. When recovered at the end of the great chase it was found the General had suffered no damage other than a brass journal bearing needing replacement. She was back in service two weeks later. Ironically it was the General that carried the captured raiders from Chattanooga to Atlanta. In September 1864, with Federal forces closing in on Atlanta, the General and four other locomotives and their freight cars were burned and the General rammed into another locomotive. She was briefly taken over by the US Military Railroad Service but not repaired, and was returned to the W&A in 1866. In the 1870s and 1880s the General underwent rebuilding and upgrading, including being converted to coal burning.
In 1888 the General traveled to Columbus, Ohio to attend the National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic. The Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis RR leased the W&A line in 1890 and received the General. In 1892 she was finally retired from regular service, but still towed to other cities for commemorative display. She was put on display in the Union Depot at Chattanooga in 1893 and this led to an ownership dispute. Up to the 1950s the General was frequently displayed about the country in expositions and fairs.
In great secrecy the General was moved to Nashville, Tennessee for restoration in 1961 and converted to run on fuel oil. Again operational in 1962 she undertook an extensive series of tours until 1966, the last time she ran under her own steam. In 1967 the General was to be returned to the state of Georgia, but it was halted in Chattanooga and kept there. This resulted in a legal battle, with the US Supreme Court ruling in 1970 that the historic locomotive be returned to Georgia. In 1972 she was moved to the Big Shanty Museum in Kennesaw. The General remains there in what is now the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History.
The 620ft long Etowah River Bridge in 1864. Andrews failed to burn this trestle bridge, considered a grave error by many. The entrenchments in the foreground were dug by Union troops during the Atlanta Campaign. Today this area is heavily forested and the bridge is gone, but the stone pillars remain. (National Archives)
They were on schedule or a little ahead, and naively comfortable that there was as yet no pursuit.
“Someone is running off with your train!”
Further down the line it was a different matter though. Having washed up and sitting down to a 25-cent breakfast, Fuller and his crew needed to rush through the meal to stay on schedule. Besides Conductor Fuller, the General was crewed by E. Jefferson “Jeff” Cain, fireman Andrew “Andy” Anderson, and the A&W foreman of machinery and motive power, Anthony Murphy. The latter was on his way to inspect new machinery at Allatoona. A loud huffing noise startled them and Murphy reportedly shouted to Fuller, “Someone is running off with your train!”9
A great deal of turmoil arose and people ran to the windows. Bounding outside, Fuller asked a guard who had taken the train. His answer led Fuller to believe it may have been deserters from the camp. Fuller later stated that he had noticed a larger number of passengers than usual at Marietta and that a disproportionate number were young men. He recognized Andrews by sight, his being a frequent traveler. Some accounts later claimed that sentries fired on the disappearing train, but this did not occur.
Fuller and Murphy knew they had to pursue the train, but there were no other locomotives nearby. At this time Lemuel Kendrick, another conductor, local postmaster, and owner of the hotel, which he leased to the Lacys, appeared. He was dispatched by horse to Marietta, the nearest telegraph, to alert the W&A office.
Fuller, angry and with a deep sense of responsibility, set off down the tracks at a dead run. Murphy and Cain followed. Fireman Anderson chose to remain behind. Passengers and soldiers were shouting and laughing at the spectacle of three men futilely chasing after a speeding train on foot and not even bothering to find horses.
By the time Kendrick reached Marietta and telegraphed the W&A superintendent in Atlanta, the raiders had already cut the line running north. He was told to take the passenger train with the Pennsylvania, which he had ordered to hold its departure from Marietta, pick up troops at Camp McDonald, and pursue the General. At Big Shanty the less-than-enthusiastic troops took their time loading and the train never departed, not that it could have contributed to the chase owing to the cut track.
William Fuller was running up the tracks as though his life depended on it. The clinging mud between the ties did not slow him.10 Lagging behind, but not giving up, were Murphy and Cain.
Fuller finally came upon a road gang at Moon’s Station. They were still discussing the perplexing sighting of the General when Fuller arrived after running 2½ miles. They told Fuller that his train had been gone for 30 minutes and that she carried numerous men who had “borrowed” a claw bar. This news gave Fuller pause – maybe there was something more to this story than merely incompetent and scared deserters. He suspected Yankee trickery, but it did not lessen his resolve, although he would now be more cautious.
There were no horses, but there was the section gang’s handcar. This was a pole car propelled by men pushing with poles as on a boat in shallow water. There were no hand-pumped cars then but reasonable speeds could be made on level ground and gentle downslopes. It had to be pushed uphill, and on even moderate down-slopes reached dangerous speeds. Murphy and Cain, puffed up and, joined by section gang foreman Bond and a worker, sped off, with Bond and the other man poling while others pushed with their legs. They fully realized they had little chance of catching the General, but Fuller was well aware of the Yonah, even if he might have to run down to Cooper Iron Works to fetch it. “This in fact was my only hope,” he said later. In addition they might be able to find some troops somewhere or even arm themselves.
Fuller and the overcrowded handcar presently came upon the crosstie barricade, and with the section cut out of the wire, it confirmed the train-thieves were more than deserters. Manhandling the handcar around the barricade, they continued to Acworth. Here they borrowed two double-barreled shotguns and crowded rifle-armed Martin Rainey and Steven Stokley on to the handcar. Fuller also dispatched a White Smith ahead on horse to raise the alarm, but he gave up and piled on the handcar at Allatoona. They learned more about the wayward train and its strange crew at these two stations. There is no reason given regarding why Fuller didn’t commandeer the unidentified yard engine at Allatoona. Perhaps he knew it was unsuited for making any long-distance speed or simply expected additional lifted rails, which the handcar could be manhandled around. On they pushed, but the handcar was finally derailed with the men leaping and thrown off where the raiders had lifted the rail outside of Allatoona.11 Undaunted and uni
njured, they were thrilled to see Yonah with a head of steam a mile downslope and across the Etowah River. Fuller sent the rail hand back down the line to summon the next section gang to repair the rail.
THE RESOLUTE CONDUCTOR WILLIAM ALLEN FULLER
The General’s conductor was born at Morrow Station, Georgia, south of what would become Atlanta, on April 15, 1836 to a cotton-farming family. He had a minimal education in local schools and married Lulu Asher at a young age. She would die in 1872; all their four children tragically died in infancy. Fuller began working for the W&A in September 1855 at 19, his job as a train hand and flagman requiring him to run ahead of trains for miles through winding and hilly countryside to prevent collisions. He was soon made a brakeman, another physically demanding job. The fact that he maintained his fitness was certainly demonstrated a few years later. After just two years of displaying his strong work ethic, skills, and serious take-charge attitude he was promoted to conductor, one of the youngest on the line. This job entailed a wide range of administrative functions: taking tickets, announcing stations, accounting for deliveries and pickups, and maintaining account records.
The Great Locomotive Chase Page 5
