Brave Deeds of Union Soldiers

by Samuel Scoville

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.