THE LOCOMOTIVE CHASE
Courage does not depend upon success. Sometimes it takes a braver man
to lose than to win. A man may meet defeat and even death in doing his
duty, but if he has not flinched or given up, he has not failed. A
brave deed is never wasted whether men live or die.
In the spring of 1862, James J. Andrews and a little band of nineteen
other men staked their lives and liberty for the freedom of Tennessee
and although they lost, the story of their courage helped other men to
be brave.
At the beginning of the Civil War, the eastern part of Tennessee was
held by the Confederates although the mountaineers were for the most
part Union men. The city of Chattanooga was the key to that part of the
state and was held by the Confederates. A railroad line into that city
ran through Georgia and was occupied by the Southern army. If that
could be destroyed, Chattanooga could be cut off from reënforcements
and captured by the small body of Union troops which could be risked
for that purpose. This road was guarded by detachments of Confederate
troops and extended for two hundred miles through Confederate territory
and it seemed as if it could not be destroyed by any force less than an
army. There was no army that could be spared.
One April evening a stranger came to the tent of General O. M. Mitchel,
commander of the Union forces in middle Tennessee, and asked to see the
general. The sentry refused to admit him unless he stated his name and
errand.
"Tell the general," said the man quietly, "that James J. Andrews wants
to speak to him on a matter of great importance."
The sentry stared at him for there were few in the army who had not
heard of Andrews, the scout, but fewer still who had ever seen him. No
man had passed through the enemy's lines so many times, knew the
country better or had been sent more often on dangerous errands. In a
minute he was ushered in to where General Mitchel sat writing in the
inner tent. With his deep-set gray eyes and waving hair brushed back
from his broad, smooth forehead, he looked more like a poet than a
fighter. The general noticed, however, that his eyes never flickered
and that although he spoke in a very low voice, there was something
about him that at once commanded attention. Andrews wasted no time.
"General Mitchel," he said, "if you will let me have twenty-four men, I
will capture a train, burn the bridges on the Georgia railroad and cut
off Chattanooga."
"It can't be done," returned General Mitchel.
"Well, general," answered Andrews slowly, "don't you think it's worth
trying? You know I generally make good on what I set out to do. In this
matter if we lose, we lose only twenty-five men. If we win, we take
Chattanooga and all Tennessee without a battle."
There was a long pause while the general studied the scout.
"You shall have the men," he said finally.
Andrews saluted and left the tent. That night twenty-four men from
three regiments were told that they were to have the first chance to
volunteer for secret and dangerous service. Not a man chosen refused to
serve. The next evening they were told to meet at a great boulder at
sunset about a mile below the camp and wait until joined by their
captain. Each man was furnished with the camp countersign as well as a
special watchword by which they could know each other. One by one the
men gathered at dusk, recognized each other by the watchword and sat
down in the brush back of the boulder to wait. Just at dark there was a
rustling in the underbrush at the other side of the road and the scout
stepped out, joined them and gave the countersign. Without a word, he
moved to the thick bushes at one corner of the boulder and pushing them
aside showed a tiny hidden path which wound through the brush. Into
this he stepped and beckoned them to follow. The path twisted back and
forth among the great stones and trees and through patches of
underbrush and the men in single file followed Andrews. Finally nearly
a mile from the road, he led them down into a dense thicket in a little
ravine. There the brush had been cut out so as to make a kind of room
in the thicket about ten feet square. When they were all inside, the
scout motioned them to sit down and then circled around through the
underbrush and doubled back on his track so as to make sure that they
had not been followed by any spy. Then he returned and lighted a small
lantern which hung to one of the saplings and for the first time his
men had a good look at their captain. As usual, Andrews wasted no time.
"Boys," he said simply, "I have chosen you to come with me and capture
a train from an army and then run it two hundred miles through the
enemy's country. We will have to pass every train we meet and while we
are doing this we must tear up a lot of track and burn down two
bridges. There is every chance of being wrecked or shot and if we are
captured, we will be hung for spies. It is a desperate chance and I
picked you fellows out as the best men in the whole army to take such a
chance. If any of you think it is too dangerous, now is the time to
stand up and draw out."
There was a long pause. Each man tried to see what his companions were
thinking of in the dim light.
"Well, captain," at last drawled a long, lank chap with a comical face,
who had the reputation of being the worst daredevil in his regiment, "I
would like to stand up for you've got me kind of scared, but my foot's
asleep and I guess I'll have to go with you."
"That's the way I feel," said the man next to him, as every one
laughed, and the same answer went all around the circle.
In a whisper the scout then outlined his plan. The men were to change
their uniforms and put on the butternut-colored clothes of the South
and to carry no arms except a revolver and bowie-knife. Then they were
to cross the country on foot until they got to Chattanooga and were
then to go back on their tracks by train and meet at a little town
called Marietta in the middle of Georgia. No one would, of course,
suspect men coming out of a Confederate city to be Union soldiers. If
questioned they were to say that they were Kentuckians on their way to
join the Southern army. At Marietta they were to take rooms at the
Marietta Hotel and meet at the scout's room on the following Saturday
morning at two o'clock.
Disguised as a quinine seller, Andrews reached Marietta ahead of the
others. At the time appointed, he sat fully dressed in the silent hotel
waiting for the arrival of his little company and wondering how many
would appear. Just as the town clock struck the hour from the
old-fashioned court house, there came a light tapping at the door and
one by one nineteen of the twenty-four glided in and reported for duty.
All had gone through various adventures and several had only escaped
capture by quick thinking and cool action. One of the missing ones had
been delayed by a wreck and did not reach Marietta in time, two others
were forced to enlist in the Southern army, and two more reached
Marietta but by some mistake did not join the others. The twenty who
were left, however, were the kind of men whose courage flares highest
when things seem most desperate and they were not at all discouraged by
the loss of a fifth of their force, and they all agreed with Brown, the
man whose foot had been asleep, when he drawled out in his comical way,
"The fewer fellows the more fun for those who are left."
After reporting, they went back to their rooms and got what sleep they
could. At daylight they were all at the ticket office in time for the
north-bound mail train. In order to prevent any suspicion, each man
bought a ticket for a different station along the line in the direction
of Chattanooga. Eight miles out of Marietta was a little station called
Big Shanty where the train was scheduled to stop twenty minutes for
breakfast. It was a lonely place at the foot of Kenesaw Mountain and
there were only the station, a freight-house, a restaurant and one or
two dwelling houses. Andrews had planned to capture the train there,
believing that there would be few, if any, bystanders at so small a
place early in the morning. As the train came around the curve of the
mountain, however, the scout and his men, who were scattered through
the train, were horrified to see scores of tents showing white through
the morning mist. A detachment of Confederate soldiers was in camp
there and it was now necessary for the little squad of Union soldiers
to capture the train not only from its crew and passengers, but under
the very eyes of a regiment. There was no flinching. The minute the
train stopped there was the usual wild scramble by the passengers for
breakfast in which the engineer, fireman and conductor joined. In a
minute the engine was left entirely unguarded. In those days engines
were named like steamboats, and this one had been christened "General."
Andrews and his men loitered behind. In his squad were two engineers
and a fireman. These at once hurried forward and began to uncouple the
engine with its tender and three baggage-cars. The rest of the party
grouped around, playing the part of bystanders, but with their hands on
their revolvers, for within a dozen feet of the engine stood a sentry
with his loaded musket in his hand watching the whole thing, while
other sentries and a large group of soldiers were only a few yards
farther off. The men worked desperately at the coupling and finally
succeeded in freeing the cars. Then the engineers and fireman sprang
into the cab of the engine while Andrews stood with his hand on the
rail and foot on the step, and the rest of the band tumbled into the
baggage-cars. This was the most critical moment of all, for although
the watching soldiers might think it natural to change the crew, yet
their suspicions would certainly be aroused at the sight of fifteen men
climbing into baggage-cars. The nearest sentry cocked his musket and
stepped forward to investigate. At this moment Brown climbed into the
engine along with one of the engineers, coolly smoking a cigar. Poking
his head out of the window he called back as if to one of the crew,
"Tell those fellows not to eat up all the breakfast. We'll be back just
as soon as we can take those other cars on at the siding." All this
time Andrews was standing with his foot on the step watching the men
enter the baggage-cars. The track was on a high bank and it was
necessary for the first man to be raised up on the shoulders of two
others in order to open the door. Once inside, the other men were
tossed up to him and he pulled them in like bags of meal. Finally there
were only two left and these jumped, caught the outstretched hands of
two inside and were hauled up into the car. Not until then did Andrews
step aboard under the very nose of the suspicious sentry. The engineer
was so anxious to start that he pulled the throttle wide open and for a
few seconds the wheels spun round and round without catching on the
rails. He finally slowed up enough to allow the wheels to bite and the
engine started off with a jerk which took all the soldiers in the
baggage-cars off their feet. Just at this moment the fat engineer
waddled out of the eating-house shouting at the top of his voice,
"Stop, thief! Stop, thief!" He was followed by the fireman who bellowed
to the sentry, "Shoot 'em, shoot 'em! They're Yanks!" It was too late.
The General was taking the first curve on two wheels, leaving the quiet
little station swarming and buzzing like a hornet's nest struck by a
stone. The train had been captured without losing a man.
Now came the even more difficult part of the undertaking, to run the
engine for two hundred miles through an enemy's country and to force it
past all the other trains between Big Shanty and Chattanooga. The first
thing to do was to prevent any message of the capture being sent on
ahead. There was no telegraph station at Big Shanty, but there was no
telling how soon word would be sent back to the nearest telegraph
operator. Accordingly, four miles out the engine was stopped and a man
named Scott, who had been a great coon-hunter before entering the army,
shinned up a telegraph pole and sawed through the wires. While he was
doing this, the rest of the party took up one of the rails and loaded
it into a baggage-car. Others piled in a lot of dry railroad ties to be
used in burning the bridges. The General was an old-style engine the
like of which is never seen nowadays. It had one of the round, funny
smoke-stacks which we still see on old postage stamps and it burned
cord-wood instead of coal, but it was a good goer for those times and
was soon whirling through the enemy's country at what seemed to the
raiders a tremendous rate of speed. Before long they were compelled to
stop at one of the stations to take in wood and water. Andrews
explained to the station-agent that they were agents of General
Beauregard running a powder-train down to the Confederate headquarters
at Corinth. At one station named Etowah, they found an old locomotive
belonging to a local iron company standing there with steam up. It
carried the name of Jonah and so far as the raiders were concerned, it
certainly lived up to its name. Brown, who was acting as engineer,
wanted to stop and put Jonah out of business, but Andrews decided to
push on. It was a fatal mistake. At Kingston, thirty miles from their
starting place, they learned that the local freight coming from
Chattanooga was about due, so Andrews put his engine over on the siding
and waited. After a long delay, the freight arrived, but it carried on
its caboose a red flag showing that another train was behind. Andrews
stepped up to the conductor and indignantly inquired how any train
dared delay General Beauregard's special powder-cars.
"Well, you see," said the freight's conductor, "the Yanks have captured
Huntsville thirty miles from Chattanooga and special trains are being
run to get everything out."
Andrews realized that General Mitchel had started against Chattanooga
and that if he could burn even one bridge, the capture of the city was
certain. Another long wait and the special freight came in, but it
carried another fatal red flag. It turned out that it was so large that
it was being run in two sections. There was nothing to do but wait. By
this time crowds of passengers and train-hands had gathered around the
so-called powder-train, all curious to look it over. The four men in
the engine sat there smoking, seemingly unconcerned. As a matter of
fact, however, they were ready any moment to fight for their lives. If
any of the crowd opened the baggage-cars and saw the other men hidden
there, no amount of explanation could persuade them that there was not
something wrong. If the waiting was hard on the men in the engine, it
was still worse for the men crouched back in the cars, not knowing what
was wrong and expecting to hear the alarm given any moment. For an hour
and five minutes the Union train was kept at Kingston. At last a
whistle was heard and the long-expected freight passed by and the
General was again on its way. A mile out from Kingston the coon-hunter
was sent up another telegraph pole and the wires again cut. The rest of
the party were leisurely trying to loosen another rail with the poor
tools which they had, when from far in the rear a sound was heard which
brought the man at the wires down with a run. It was the whistle of an
engine coming their direction and meant that in some mysterious way the
enemy was on their track.
"Pull, you men!" shouted Andrews. "They've got word somehow and they're
after us."
Again the whistle sounded, this time much nearer, and with a last
frantic pull the rail broke and eight men tumbled head over heels down
an embankment. They were up in a minute and scrambled into the
baggage-car and the old General was off once more at top speed. At
Adairsville, the next station, a freight and passenger train were
waiting and there Andrews heard that another express was due from
Chattanooga which had not yet arrived. There was no time to wait now
that the pursuit had begun and the old General was pushed at full speed
in order to reach the next siding before meeting the express. The nine
miles between stations were covered in as many minutes, Brown and the
fireman heaping on the cord-wood and soaking it with kerosene-oil until
the fire-plate was red hot. They reached the station just in time, for
the express was about to pull out when the whistle of Andrews' train
was heard, and it backed down so as to allow the "powder-train" to take
the side track. It stopped, however, in such a manner as to completely
close up the other end of the switch. The engineer and conductor of the
express were plainly suspicious and refused to move their train until
Andrews had answered their questions. With the pursuing engine on his
track, any more delay would be fatal. Cocking his revolver, Andrews
poked it into the stomach of the engineer.
"My instructions from General Beauregard," he said, "are to rush this
train through and to shoot any one that tries to delay it and I am
going to begin on you."
The engineer lost all further desire to ask questions, climbed into his
cab and pulled out. The way was now clear to Chattanooga. Beyond the
next station Andrews stopped once more to cut the wires and to try to
take up a section of the track, when right behind suddenly sounded the
whistle of an engine like the scream of some relentless bird of prey
that could not be turned from its pursuit. Far down the track rushed a
locomotive crowded with soldiers armed with rifles. Two minutes more
would have saved the day for Andrews. The rail bent, but did not break,
although the men tugged at it frantically until the bullets began
pattering around them. There was only just time to jump aboard and the
General was off again with the Confederate engine thundering close
behind.
The story of this pursuer is the story of two men who refused to give
up and who won out by accepting the one chance in a thousand which
ordinary men would let go by. When the stolen train whirled off at Big
Shanty there were two men who didn't waste any time in shouting or
swearing. They were Fuller, the conductor of the stolen train, and
Murphy, the foreman of the Atlanta railway machine shops. There was no
telegraph station nor any locomotive at hand in which to follow the
runaways. Apparently it was hopeless, yet out of all the crowd of
civilians and soldiers who rushed around and asked questions and
shouted answers, Fuller and Murphy were the only two who took the long
chance and ran after the flying train. The rest of the crew could not
help laughing to see two men chase a locomotive on foot. But Murphy and
the other let them laugh and ran on. Before they had gone a half mile
they found a hand-car on a siding. This they lifted over to the main
track, manned the pump-bars and were soon flying along at the rate of
some fifteen miles an hour. As they came near Etowah the hand-car
suddenly flew off the track and went rolling down the embankment. It
had met the first of the broken rails. The two men were much bruised
and shaken up, but no bones were broken and they managed to hoist the
hand-car back on to the rails again and were soon on their way, this
time keeping a lookout for any traps ahead. At Etowah they found old
"Jonah" puffing on the siding, the engine that Brown had advised
blowing up. It was at once pressed into service, loaded with soldiers
and in a minute was flying toward Kingston, where Andrews had his
life-shortening wait of over an hour. Fuller knew of the tangle of
trains at that point and told his escort to get their muskets ready and
be prepared for a fight, but Andrews had been away just four minutes
when the pursuers reached the station, and Fuller there found himself
stopped by three heavy trains. It was hopeless to wait for them to
move, and besides old Jonah was not much on speed. Fuller and his men
jumped out, ran through to the farthest train, uncoupled the engine and
one car, in spite of the protests of its crew, filled it with forty
armed men and once more started after the flying General.
It was their whistle which so startled Andrews and his men when they
were breaking the second rail. Fuller and Murphy saw what they had done
and managed to reverse the engine in time to prevent a wreck. Again at
this point ordinary men would have given up the chase for it was
impossible to go farther in that engine or to get it over the broken
rail, but these Confederates were not ordinary men. Leaving their
escort they started down the track again on foot alone, doggedly and
relentlessly after their stolen General. Before they had gone far they
met the mixed train that had told Andrews of the express. They signaled
so frantically that it stopped and when the crew learned that the
so-called "powder-train" was on its way to destroy the great bridges
which formed the backbone of their railway, they consented to turn
back. So uncoupling the locomotive and the tender and filling them with
armed soldiers and civilians from among the passengers, Fuller and
Murphy made their sixth start. On foot, by hand-car, in two
locomotives, on foot again and now once more in a locomotive, they
began what was to be the last lap of this race on which a city and a
state depended.
Beyond Adairsville the Confederates could see far ahead in the distance
Andrews and his men making desperate efforts to raise the rail. With
long screams from her whistle, the Confederate engine fairly leaped
over the tracks. The rail bent slowly, but the spikes still held. Two
minutes, or even a minute more would break the track and the road and
bridges would be defenseless before the Union raiders. But it was not
to be. Andrews and his men tugged at the stubborn rail until the
pursuing engine was so close that the bullets were dropping all around
them and then sprang into the engine and thundered off again. If only a
little time could be gained the Union men could burn the Oostinaula
Bridge. So while the engine was running at a speed of nearly a mile a
minute, the men in the last car crowded into the next and the last car
was dropped off in the hope that it would block the road for the
pursuer. But the engine behind pushed it ahead until the next station
was reached where it could be switched off the main track. This slowed
the chaser's speed, however, so that the General was able to take on
wood and water and also to cut the wires beyond the station so that the
news of their coming would not be telegraphed ahead and give the
station-master a chance to either side-track them or block the track.
The pursuing engine began to gain again and the little band of Union
soldiers moved into the first car and the end of the second car was
smashed and it was cut loose. Railroad ties were also dropped across
the track and time enough was gained once more for the General to take
on wood and water at two more stations and to cut the wires beyond
each. Twice they stopped and tried in vain to raise a rail, but the
pursuers came within rifle range each time before they could finish.
The rain prevented the burning of the bridges and now slowly and surely
the pursuing engine began to gain. The raiders tried every way to block
the track. At one point they spied a spare rail near a sharp curve.
Stopping the engine they fitted it into the track in such a way that it
seemed certain to derail the Confederate engine. The latter came
thundering on at full speed, struck the hidden rail, and leaped at
least six inches from the rail, but came down safely and went whirling
along as if nothing had happened. Not once in a hundred times could an
engine have kept the track after such a collision. This was the time.
Now they were too close to the General to allow of any more stoppages
even for wood and water. Andrews decided to risk everything on one last
stroke. A mile or so ahead was a wooden-covered bridge. At his orders
out of the last car his men swarmed into the engine filling every inch
of space, even the tender and the cow-catcher being covered with men.
All of the fuel left was piled into the one remaining car, smeared with
oil and set afire. Both the doors were opened and the draught as it was
whirled along soon fanned the fire into furious flames. They dashed
into the dark of the covered bridge with the car spurting flame from
both sides. Right in the middle of the bridge it was uncoupled and left
burning fast and furiously. It did not seem possible that any engine
could pass through such a barrier. There was just enough pressure left
in the boiler to reach the next wood-yard and the Union scouts looked
back anxiously at the bridge. In a minute they heard around a far-away
curve the whistle which sounded to them like the screech of a demon.
The Confederates had dashed into the bridge and pushed the flaming car
ahead of them to the next switch. The Union scouts had played their
last card. There would be no chance of taking in wood before they were
overtaken. One thing only was left. They stopped the engine, sprang
out, reversed the locomotive and sent it dashing back to collide with
their pursuer and then separated to try to make their way back some
three hundred miles through the enemy's country to the Union lines. The
Confederates, when they saw the engine coming, reversed their own and
kept just ahead of this last attack of the old General until its fires
died down and it came to a stop.
Mitchel, the Union general, but thirty miles west of Chattanooga,
waited in vain for the engine which never came. Chattanooga was saved
and the most daring railroad raid in history had failed.
The story of the fate of the brave men who volunteered for the forlorn
hope is a sad one. Several were captured that same day and all but two
within a week. These two were overtaken and brought back when they were
just on the point of reaching the Union outposts and had supposed
themselves safe. Even the two who reached Marietta but did not take the
train with the others were identified and added to the band of
prisoners. Being in civilian clothes within an enemy's lines, they were
all held as spies and the heroic Andrews and seven others were tried
and executed. Of the others, eight, headed by Brown, overpowered the
guards in broad daylight and made their escape from Atlanta, Georgia,
and finally reached the North. The other six started with them, but
were recaptured and held as prisoners until exchanged in the early part
of 1863.
So ends the story of an expedition that failed in its immediate object,
but that succeeded in the example which these brave men set their
fellows.