The Great Locomotive Chase

Podcast Transcript

On April 12, 1862, one of the most daring and audacious events of the American Civil War took place.

It wasn’t a major battle. It didn’t involve armies lining up across each other on an open field.

Instead, it was one of the first examples in military history of a raid designed to deny the enemy access to the most vital technology of the 19th century: the railroad.

Learn more about the Great Locomotive Chase and how railroads became a strategic war objective on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

The Great Locomotive Chase stands as one of the most daring and dramatic episodes of the American Civil War, combining elements of espionage, high adventure, and 19th-century technological warfare.

In April 1862, the Civil War had completed its first year. It had already gone longer than most people assumed it would at the onset of the conflict.

This story begins with the Union Army, under General Don Carlos Buell, was advancing toward Chattanooga, Tennessee, a crucial railroad hub that connected the eastern and western theaters of the Confederacy.

Meanwhile, General Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel’s forces were moving through northern Alabama and Georgia, creating pressure on Confederate supply lines.

The railroad network was the lifeline of the Confederate war effort in this region. The Western & Atlantic Railroad, running from Atlanta northward through Marietta, Kennesaw, and on to Chattanooga, carried troops, supplies, and communications that kept Confederate forces operational. If this line could be severed at a critical moment, it might cripple Confederate ability to reinforce their positions and coordinate their defense.

This made perfect sense, but it was also something that was still uncommon in military history. Railroads were still a relatively new technology. In a previous episode, I touched on how the British used railroads during the Crimean War.

They built a railway to supply and transport their troops. However, railways had not yet achieved the status of strategic objectives.

During the American Civil War, both sides had well-established rail infrastructures and utilized their railways to support their war efforts. Hence, if you could damage the enemy’s rail system, you could harm their ability to wage war.

The raid was conceived by James J. Andrews, a civilian scout and spy from Kentucky who had previously conducted intelligence-gathering missions for the Union.

He had spent years before the war running contraband goods through the border regions, giving him intimate knowledge of Southern railroads and an ability to blend in among Confederate civilians. When the war began, Andrews offered his services to the Union as a spy and saboteur.

Andrews possessed the kind of bold imagination that military bureaucracies rarely produce. His plan was elegantly simple in concept but breathtakingly complex in execution.

His plan called for a small group of Union soldiers, disguised in civilian clothes, to infiltrate the South, hijack a Confederate locomotive, and destroy bridges, railroad tracks, and telegraph lines as they moved northward, thereby disrupting Confederate communications and supply routes in advance of a planned Union offensive on Chattanooga.

Andrews recruited twenty-two volunteers from Ohio regiments, primarily from the 2nd and 33rd Ohio Infantry. These weren’t professional spies or saboteurs—they were ordinary soldiers, many of them railroad workers in civilian life, who volunteered for what they understood to be a dangerous mission behind enemy lines

The volunteers included men like William Pittenger, who would later write the most detailed account of the adventure, and Joshua Brown, Marion Ross, and John Wollam—names that would become legendary in railroad folklore.

The infiltration phase of the operation demonstrated the remarkable audacity of the enterprise.

These Union soldiers, traveling in small groups or individually, made their way hundreds of miles into enemy territory. They posed as Kentucky civilians seeking to avoid Union military service, as traveling salesmen, or as workers seeking employment in the South.

These men were deep in hostile territory, surrounded by Confederate soldiers and suspicious civilians, knowing that discovery meant certain death as spies. They had to maintain their cover stories while navigating unfamiliar terrain and dealing with Confederate checkpoints and patrols.

The rendezvous point was Marietta, Georgia, a small town about twenty miles north of Atlanta on the Western & Atlantic line. This location was chosen because it was far enough from Atlanta to avoid heavy Confederate presence, yet close enough to major railroad facilities to make the plan feasible.

On the morning of April 12, 1862, Andrews and his volunteers gathered at the Lacy Hotel in Marietta. The plan called for them to board the regular northbound passenger train and execute their theft at the train station in Big Shanty, Georgia, now known as Kennesaw, where the train made a scheduled breakfast stop.

Big Shanty was chosen strategically. The town served as a Confederate training camp, which might seem counterintuitive. Still, Andrews reasoned that the very presence of Confederate soldiers would make the theft more unexpected because no one would be expecting it that deep in Confederate territory. More importantly, Big Shanty had no telegraph office, which would delay any alarm being raised.

At approximately 6 AM, the northbound train pulled into Big Shanty station. The locomotive pulling the train was “The General,” a handsome 4-4-0 American-type engine built by Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works. As passengers and crew disembarked for breakfast at the station house, Andrews and his men made their move.

While Confederate soldiers were eating breakfast mere yards away, Union raiders quietly uncoupled the passenger cars, leaving only the locomotive, tender, and three boxcars. Andrews took the engineer’s position, while several of his men climbed aboard. With a blast of the whistle and clouds of steam, they were off, leaving behind a station full of bewildered Confederates.

Having stolen a train in broad daylight from under the noses of Confederate troops, now came the far more difficult task of racing 87 miles through enemy territory while systematically destroying the railroad behind them.

What happened next transformed a daring raid into an epic chase that would become the stuff of legend. William Fuller, the conductor of the stolen train, refused to accept what had happened.

Along with Anthony Murphy, a railroad mechanic, and Jeff Cain, the engineer, Fuller began pursuing the stolen locomotive on foot.

Initially, this might seem almost comical—three men chasing a locomotive on foot. However, Fuller’s intimate knowledge of the railroad and his determination would prove to be formidable assets.

The raiders, meanwhile, faced unexpected challenges that slowed their progress and gave their pursuers crucial opportunities.

Operating a stolen locomotive while destroying railroad infrastructure proved far more complex than Andrews had anticipated. The raiders needed to stop frequently to cut telegraph wires, tear up track, and burn bridges. Each stop cost precious time and allowed their pursuers to close the gap.

Moreover, the Western & Atlantic was a busy railroad. The raiders encountered several southbound trains that they had to deal with carefully. They couldn’t simply crash through—that would create debris that might derail their own locomotive.

Instead, they had to convince station masters and train crews that they were running a special powder train for Confederate forces, a story that worked initially but became harder to maintain as word of the theft spread.

Fuller and his companions demonstrated remarkable persistence and ingenuity. When they found a handcar, they used it to continue their pursuit. When the handcar was derailed by track damage the raiders had caused, they continued on foot until they found another locomotive, the “Yonah,” at Etowah Station.

The “Yonah” carried them to the town of Kingston, where they commandeered a more powerful locomotive, the “William R. Smith.” When that engine was blocked by a freight train, they switched to the “Texas,” running it backward in their continued pursuit.

This succession of locomotives illustrates both the complexity of the railroad network and the determination of the pursuers. Each switch cost time but also brought more Confederate forces into the chase, creating a growing wave of pursuit behind the fleeing raiders.

As the chase continued northward, it became increasingly clear that Andrews’ plan was unraveling. The raiders had hoped to destroy key bridges and tunnels, but their repeated stops to cut wires and damage track had given their pursuers crucial time to close the gap. More critically, they were running low on fuel and water.

The psychological pressure on both sides was enormous. The raiders knew that capture meant death, while their pursuers understood that allowing armed Union soldiers to escape through Georgia would be a catastrophic failure. The chase had evolved into a high-stakes race where minutes could mean the difference between success and disaster.

Near Ringgold, Georgia, just 18 miles from Chattanooga and the potential safety of Union forces, “The General” finally ran out of steam. The raiders abandoned the locomotive and scattered into the woods, hoping to reach Union lines on foot.

This moment represents one of the great “what-ifs” of Civil War history. Had the raiders reached Chattanooga, they might have accomplished their mission of disrupting Confederate communications and supply lines at a crucial moment in the war. Instead, they found themselves hunted fugitives in hostile territory.

Within days, all of the raiders were captured. Eight, including Andrews, were executed as spies. The others eventually escaped from prison or were exchanged. Fourteen of the survivors became the first recipients of the newly created Medal of Honor, America’s highest military decoration.

The executions of Andrews and his companions became a source of controversy and Union propaganda. The Confederates argued that the men were spies operating behind enemy lines in civilian clothes and therefore, subject to execution under the laws of war. The Union portrayed them as heroic soldiers carrying out legitimate military operations.

The Great Locomotive Chase showcased several important themes in Civil War history.

First, it demonstrated the crucial importance of railroads in 19th-century warfare. The raid targeted the railroad not just as infrastructure but as the nervous system of Confederate military operations.

Second, it illustrates the evolution of military tactics to include what we might now call special operations—small units operating independently behind enemy lines to achieve strategic objectives. Andrews’ raid was one of the earliest examples of this type of warfare in American military history.

Third, the chase became a powerful propaganda tool for both sides, demonstrating how individual acts of courage could capture public imagination and serve broader political purposes.

Finally, this might have been the first high-speed chase in world history, or at least it was for a few moments. By “high speed,” I just mean anything faster than a running horse. Such a thing wasn’t really possible up until this point.

The locomotives involved—particularly “The General”—became historical artifacts in their own right. “The General” survived the war and is currently located at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw, Georgia.

The Texas is located at the Atlanta History Center.

The story was loosely the basis for the early silent film by Buster Keaton called The General, and it was also the basis of the 1956 Disney film The Great Locomotive Chase.

The Great Locomotive Chase demonstrates how the Civil War was fought not just on battlefields, but along railroad lines, telegraph wires, and supply routes that connected the military front to the industrial and agricultural base that sustained it.

It reminds us that in modern warfare, infrastructure becomes both weapon and target, and that sometimes the most audacious plans, even when they fail, can achieve a kind of immortality that outlasts the conflicts that spawned them.

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.

A quick reminder that I will be hosting the Everything Everywhere Daily 5th anniversary event on July 19th in Appleton, Wisconsin. If you would like to attend, information and an RSVP are available in a link in the show notes.

If we can get a decent turnout in the middle of Wisconsin, then I might look into doing similar events around the country, and maybe even outside the US.

Today’s review comes from listener die-die-die over on Apple Podcasts in Australia. They write.

Love it!!!!

Personally, I would recommend this to go to sleep with, but I would like to hear that this podcast has budgies and the history of their colours. From budgiedude 233

Thanks, budgiedude! For those of you who aren’t familiar with what a budgie is, it is basically a parakeet. In particular, a very colorful one that is native to Australia.

I have to confess, this is an area I haven’t really researched, but I’d certainly be willing to learn more about them.

Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you, too, can have it read on the show.