September 16th, 2009 – Our 66th Meeting!
The next meeting of the Clarksville (TN) Civil War Roundtable will be on Wednesday, September 16th, in the café of Borders Books in Governor’s Square Mall. This is located on Wilma Rudolph Blvd (Hwy 79) south of Exit 4 off I-24, then head south a bit. The mall is on the left. The meeting begins at 7:00 pm and is always open to the public.
“Stealing The General: The Great Locomotive Chase and the First Medal of Honor”
One of the great stories of the Civil War is the Great Locomotive Chase, or Andrews’ Raid. It has been the topic of several books over time, including memoirs by participants. Two movies, a silent film featuring Buster Keaton, and a later Disney production with Fess Parker that made every effort to be accurate, added to the popularity of this great story.
The book, Stealing The General: The Great Locomotive Chase and the First Medal Of Honor, by Atlanta attorney Russell S. Bonds, is the latest, and in the opinion of your newsletter editor, the finest treatment of this raid to date, and it adds much to our understanding of the story. It will be the topic of Mr. Bonds’ program for this month’s Nashville CWRT.
In the Spring of 1862, Union Gen. Ormsby Mitchell conceived a campaign to capture northern Alabama and threaten Chattanooga. As part of this offensive, Mitchell dispatched raiders (mostly Ohio soldiers in civilian clothing) under James J. Andrews to hijack a freight train on the vital Western & Atlantic Railroad from Atlanta to Chattanooga and tear up track, burn bridges and cut the telegraph lines. This would prevent reinforcements coming up from Atlanta.
The train in hand and driven by the locomotive The General, Andrews’ men tried to break tracks and burn bridges but were stymied by rain that fell during the raid. They were also pursued by the intrepid conductor, William Fuller and a few others, who first chased them on foot, then by hand car and finally by another locomotive running backwards! After running out of fuel, Andrews and his men were captured north of Ringgold, GA and sent to prison. Some were executed as spies, others escaped and made their way back north. Some of those survivors were the first American soldiers to receive the new Medal of Honor.
Russell Bonds is an in-house lawyer for The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta and the author of Stealing the General: The Great Locomotive Chase and the First Medal of Honor, winner of the Richard B. Harwell Award for Best Civil War Book in 2007. His new book is War Like the Thunderbolt: The Battle and Burning of Atlanta. He is also a member of the Atlanta CWRT and the Friends of Kennesaw Mountain.
Greg Biggs
Clarksville CWRT