14. A Daring Train-Jacking
It was early 1862, during the American Civil War. Union forces were worried about the possibility of Confederate troops rapidly arriving at Chattanooga from Atlanta, using the Western & Atlantic Railroad (W&R). James J. Andrews, a Union civilian scout, proposed a daring raid to sever that rail connection. He and a select group of volunteers would seize a locomotive in Georgia, then travel north, destroying two connecting railway lines and their vital bridges along the way.
Andrews’ idea was approved, and in early April, 1862, he recruited Union Army volunteers for his raid. Slipping through Confederate lines in civilian clothes, the men rendezvoused in Marietta, Georgia. There, they boarded a train on April 11th. When it reached a small stop called “Big Shanty”, selected by Andrews because it had no telegraph that the Confederates could use to send out an alarm, the raiders leaped into action. Seizing the locomotive, named the General, they uncoupled it from the rest of the train and took off. It was the start of a rollicking chase.