The Missing Tin Box or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds
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The train's conductor , William Allen Fuller , and two other men, chased the stolen train, first on foot, then by a handcar belonging to a work crew shortly north of Big Shanty. In addition, the terrain north of Atlanta is very hilly, and the ruling grades are steep. Since Andrews intended to stop periodically to perform acts of sabotage, a determined pursuer, even on foot, could conceivably have caught up with the train before it reached Chattanooga.
At Etowah, the raiders passed the older and smaller locomotive Yonah which was on a siding that led to the nearby Cooper Iron Works. Andrews considered stopping to attack and destroy that locomotive so it could not be used by pursuers, but given the size of its work party even though unarmed relative to the size of the raiding party, he judged that any firefight would be too long and too involved, and would alert nearby troops and civilians.
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As the raiders had stolen a regularly scheduled train on its route, they needed to keep to that train's timetable. If they reached a siding ahead of schedule, they had to wait there until scheduled southbound trains passed them before they could continue north. Andrews claimed to the station masters he encountered that his train was a special northbound ammunition movement ordered by General Beauregard in support of his operations against the Union forces threatening Chattanooga.
This story was sufficient for the isolated station masters Andrews encountered as he had cut the telegraph wires to the south , but it had no impact upon the train dispatchers and station masters north of him, whose telegraph lines to Chattanooga were working. These dispatchers were following their orders to dispatch and control the special train movements southward at the highest priority. Thus delayed at the junction town of Kingston, as the first of the southbound freight evacuation trains approached, Andrews inquired of that train's conductor why his train was carrying a red marker flag on its rear car.
Andrews was told that Confederate Railway officials in Chattanooga had been notified by Confederate Army officials that Mitchel was approaching Chattanooga from Stevenson, Alabama, intending to either capture or lay siege to the city, and as a result of this warning, the Confederate Military Railways had ordered the Special Freight movements.
The red train marker flag on the southbound train meant that there was at least one additional train behind the one which Andrews had just encountered, and that Andrews had no "authority for movement" until the last train of that sectional movement had passed him. Being delayed at Kingston for over an hour, this gave Fuller all the time he needed to close the distance. The raiders finally pulled out of Kingston only moments before Fuller's arrival. They still managed north of Kingston again to cut the telegraph wire and break a rail. Meanwhile, moving north on the handcar, Fuller had spotted the locomotive Yonah at Etowah and commandeered it, chasing the raiders north all the way to Kingston.
There, Fuller switched to the locomotive William R. Smith, which was on a sidetrack leading west to the town of Rome, Ga.
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Two miles south of Adairsville, however, the pursuers were stopped by the broken track, forcing Fuller and his party to continue the pursuit on foot. Beyond the damaged section, he took command of the southbound locomotive Texas south of Calhoun, where Andrews had passed it, running it backwards. The Texas train crew had been bluffed by Andrews at Calhoun into taking the station siding, thereby allowing the General to continue northward along the single-track main line.
Fuller, when he met the Texas , took command of her, picked up eleven Confederate troops at Calhoun, and continued his pursuit. The raiders now never got far ahead of Fuller and never had enough time to stop and take up a rail to halt the Texas. Destroying the railway behind the hijacked train was a slow process. The raiders were too few in number and were too poorly equipped with the proper railway track tools and demolition equipment, and the rain that day made it difficult to burn the bridges.
As well, railway officials in Chattanooga had sufficient time to evacuate engines and rolling stock to the south, hauling critical railroad supplies away from the Union threat, so as to prevent their either being captured by General Mitchel or trapped uselessly inside Chattanooga during a Union siege of the city. With the Texas still chasing the General tender-first, the two trains steamed through Dalton and Tunnel Hill.
The raiders continued to sever the telegraph wires, but they were unable to burn bridges or damage Tunnel Hill. The wood they had hoped to burn was soaked by rain. Just before the raiders cut the telegraph wire north of Dalton, Fuller managed to send off a message from there alerting the authorities in Chattanooga of the approaching stolen engine.
Finally, at milepost Andrews and all of his men were caught within two weeks, including the two who had missed the hijacking. Confederate forces charged all the raiders with "acts of unlawful belligerency"; the civilians were charged as unlawful combatants and spies. All the prisoners were tried in military courts, or courts-martial. Tried in Chattanooga, Andrews was found guilty. He was executed by hanging on June 7 in Atlanta. On June 18, seven others who had been transported to Knoxville and convicted as spies were returned to Atlanta and also hanged; their bodies were buried unceremoniously in an unmarked grave they were later reburied in Chattanooga National Cemetery.
Writing about the exploit, Corporal William Pittenger said that the remaining raiders worried about also being executed. They attempted to escape and eight succeeded. Traveling for hundreds of miles in pairs, they all made it back safely to Union lines, including two who were aided by slaves and Union sympathizers and two who floated down the Chattahoochee River until they were rescued by the Union blockade vessel USS Somerset in the Gulf of Mexico. The remaining six were held as prisoners of war and exchanged for Confederate prisoners on March 17, Secretary of War Edwin M.
Stanton awarded some of the raiders with the first Medal of Honor. Private Jacob Wilson Parrott , who had been physically abused as a prisoner, was awarded the first. Later, all but two of the other soldiers who had participated in the raid also received the medal, with posthumous awards to families for those who had been executed. As civilians, Andrews and Campbell were not eligible.
There is a scale model of the General on top of the monument, and a brief history of the Great Locomotive Chase. One marker indicates where the chase began, near the Big Shanty Museum now known as Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw, while another shows where the chase ended at Milepost Kennesaw House, 21 Depot St. Finally, there is a historic marker in downtown Atlanta, at the corner of 3rd and Juniper streets, at the site where Andrews was hanged. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. April Learn how and when to remove this template message. The Populists were soon voted out and had no lasting impact on the UP. In the financial crisis of , the UP, like other American railroads, went bankrupt.
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The trains continued to operate, but the bondholders lost their investment. Harriman — purchased the UP for a song.
He upgraded its miles of trackage, modernized its equipment, and merged it with the Southern Pacific, which dominated California. The Supreme Court broke up that merger in From to , there was little growth in the UP, which dominated the farming, ranching, mining and tourist trade in a region stretching from Omaha and Kansas City in the East, to Salt Lake City and Denver in the West. There was little expansion but after that the UP system grew to over 32, miles of track with large lines like the Southern Pacific , the Missouri Pacific Railroad and the Missouri—Kansas—Texas Railroad becoming part of the UP system as well as smaller ones.
The UP itself was not guilty but it did get bad publicity. The financial crisis of led to financial troubles but not bankruptcy.
Jay Gould took control in and built a viable railroad that depended on shipments by local farmers and ranchers. Gould immersed himself in every operational and financial detail of the UP system. He built an encyclopedic knowledge, then acted decisively to shape its destiny. After Gould's death, the Union Pacific Railway slipped and declared bankruptcy during the Panic of In , a new Union Pacific Railroad was formed and absorbed the Union Pacific Railway, this new railroad reverted to the original Union Pacific name of the original company, but now pronounced "Railroad" and not "Rail Road".
Harriman bought the line cheaply, and made it much more efficient, and highly profitable. He tried to incorporate it into a vast western system, but the Supreme Court blocked his attempts as monopolistic. Durant had overall charge of the construction program. He selected routes on the basis of how cheap they were to construct, for that would maximize profits on the fixed congressional loans.
He did not give emphasis to the long-term economic potential of the area served.
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He therefore vetoed the engineers who wanted to use the otherwise highly attractive South Pass route in Wyoming. Building the line came in stages: Then came the grading party with plows and shovels. Finally came the ties and the rails, along with the telegraph line, signals, sidings and switches. Starting in summer Omaha became the logistics base for thousands of tons of rails, ties, tools and supplies. As soon as a few miles of track was ready, supplies were moved to a forward supply point, and teams of horse-drawn or mule drawn wagons carried them to the work point.
Eventually the teams could lay several miles of track today—the record was 10 miles. Winter and spring caused severe problems as the Missouri River froze over in the winter; but not well enough to support a railroad track plus train. The train ferries had to be replaced by sleighs each winter. During the winter of —66, former Union General John S. Casement , the new Chief Engineer, assembled men and supplies to push the railroad rapidly west.
To protect the railroad's surveying and hunting parties, the U. Army instituted active cavalry patrols that grew larger as the Indians grew more aggressive. Temporary, " Hell on wheels " towns, made mostly of canvas tents, accompanied the railroad as construction headed west. Most faded away but some became permanent settlements.
In late , General Grenville M. Dodge was appointed Chief Engineer on the Union Pacific; Casement continued to work as chief construction boss and his brother Daniel Casement continued as financial officer. This "new" route had never become an emigrant route because it lacked the water and grass to feed the emigrants' oxen and mules.
Steam locomotives did not need grass, and the railroad drilled wells for water. Coal was mined in Wyoming by the time the UP arrived. Coal shipments by rail were also looked on as a potentially major source of income—this potential is still being realized, as Wyoming is the nation's largest coal producer in the 21st century.
They paused over the winter, preparing to push the track over Evan's Sherman's pass. The Dale Creek Crossing bridge was one of their more difficult railroad engineering challenges. Cheyenne became a major railroad center and was equipped with extensive railroad yards, maintenance facilities and a Union Pacific presence. Its location made it a good base for helper locomotives to couple to trains with snowplows to clear the tracks of winter snow or help haul heavy freight over Evan's pass. The Union Pacific's junction with the Denver Railroad with its connection to Kansas City, Kansas , Kansas City, Missouri and the railroads east of the Missouri River again increased Cheyenne's importance as the junction of two major railroads.
The railroad established towns along the way: Interstate 80 now follows nearly the same route. In the Dakota Territory Wyoming it built the new towns of Laramie , Rawlins and Evanston, Wyoming , as well as many more fuel and water stops. The Green River was bridged on October 1, —the last big river to cross.
Evanston became a significant train maintenance shop town equipped to carry out extensive repairs on the cars and steam locomotives. To speed up construction as much as possible, Union Pacific contracted several thousand Mormon workers to cut, fill, trestle, bridge, blast and tunnel its way down the rugged Weber River Canyon to Ogden, Utah ahead of the railroad construction.
The Mormon and Union Pacific rail work was joined in the area of the present-day border between Utah and Wyoming. The tunnels were all made with the new nitroglycerine explosive which expedited work but caused some fatal accidents. In the s, the original UP purchased three short Mormon -built roads: It built or purchased local lines that gave it access to key locations: It acquired the Kansas Pacific originally called the Union Pacific, Eastern Division, though an entirely separate railroad.
It also owned narrow gauge trackage into the mining districts high in the Colorado rockies and a standard gauge line south from Denver across New Mexico into Texas. Jan Richard Heier argues that, "America's greatest technological achievement of the nineteenth century" was the transcontinental railroad.
Frequently Asked Questions where you are now and offsite Links pages are also provided, and numerous text links cross reference related topics. On the West side of Tunnel 6 you will see the footprint of the original turntable, there is also a footprint of a turntable at Cisco. Stiles in Robber Barons or Captains of Industry? Is it true that most of the original Sierra Grade is still in use today? To protect the railroad's surveying and hunting parties, the U. Clarke, the famous science fiction writer once remarked that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
He adds that the political scandal over the disposition of millions of dollars in government bonds led to Congressional hearings that showed the weakness of accounting methods. The reporting of assets, liabilities, and capital followed standards of the day. The companies had to invent new methods for accounting for stock dividends and bond discounts. Congress distrusted the UP, and forced it to hire as the new president a distinguished member of the Adams family, Charles Francis Adams, Jr.
Adams had long promoted various reform ideas, but had little practical experience in management. As railroad president, he was successful in getting a good press for the UP, and set up libraries along the route to allow his employees to better themselves.
He had poor results dealing with the Knights of Labor labor union. The result was the Rock Springs massacre , that killed scores of Chinese, and drove all the rest out of Wyoming. He had great difficulty in making decisions, and in coordinating his subordinates. Adams was unable to stanch the worsening financial condition of the UP, and in Gould forced his resignation.
Great Locomotive Chase
In addition to charges for freight and passenger service, the UP made its money from land sales, especially to farmers and ranchers. The UP land grant gave it ownership of 12, acres per mile of finished track. The government kept every other section of land, so it also had 12, acres to sell or give away to homesteaders. The UP's goal was not to make a profit, but rather to build up a permanent clientele of farmers and townspeople who would form a solid basis for routine sales and purchases.