The Andrews room is on the second floor of the former hotel. |
It might be a
bit of a stretch to liken the Civil War’s Andrews Raid – popularly known as “The
Great Locomotive Chase” – to the daring Doolittle Raid in World War II, but
perhaps there are a few similarities.
In 1862, Union
spy James J. Andrews and a handful of Ohio soldiers struck deep in Southern
territory. Their aim was to disrupt Confederate rail service between Atlanta
and Chattanooga, Tenn., making the latter vulnerable to capture. The mission
failed. Eight men – including Andrews – were hanged as spies, Chattanooga was
not attacked in force and the Western & Atlantic Railroad quickly rebounded
from a smattering of damage.
The
saboteurs, however, became heroes in the North and the very first Medal of
Honor went to one, Jacob Parrott. Eventually, 19 of the raiders received the
honor (Andrews, a civilian, did not qualify).
The Doolittle
Raid also occurred in April, albeit 80 years later. The air raid over Tokyo and
other cities on Honshu caused minimal damage, but demonstrated the Japanese mainland was vulnerable to attack and boosted morale in the United
States.
Propaganda is
a powerful thing, and the Confederacy likewise treated those who ran down the
Andrews raiders as heroes.
Models of the General (left) and Texas |
The nervous night before raid
On Saturday,
I made my way to Marietta, Ga., where Andrews and 19 others boarded the locomotive
General to begin their caper. The town, just northwest of Atlanta, is rich in
Civil War history: It has a national and Confederate cemetery, a “Gone with the
Wind” museum and is near Kennesaw Mountain, scene of a significant battle in
June 1864 during Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign.
I walked
through the charming downtown square in a city older than Atlanta and
Chattanooga. I passed restaurants, boutiques and antique shops on a hot summer
day made bearable by a breeze. My destination was the Kennesaw House, one of
the oldest buildings in the city, and home to the Marietta Museum of History.
Route of the chase, which ended near Ringgold. |
The second-floor
of the building features contemporary exhibits and a room that I specifically
wanted to see. In April 1862, the former cotton warehouse was known as Fletcher
House. The hotel, perched along the railroad tracks, was owned by Dix Fletcher,
a Union sympathizer. The swankier Marietta Hotel on the square was operated by
Yankee spy Henry G. Cole.
Fletcher
House is where most of the raiders spent the night before they boarded the
train.
Andrews (who hoped to be paid for his efforts) was
familiar with Marietta but it took a lot of moxie for his men,
dressed as civilians and posing as Confederate army recruits, to travel south from
Shelbyville, Tenn., to Marietta in order to board the locomotive General. They passed
Confederates who surely wondered whether they were conscripts avoiding service.
Two would-be raiders were stopped in North Georgia and impressed into the
Confederate army.
James Andrews |
The raiders
arrived in the city late on April 11 and all but two crammed into a room or two
in the Fletcher House. Two more stayed at the Marietta Hotel, but they overslept
and did not take part in the raid.
The building
housing the museum has undergone several renovations since the Civil War and
the re-created hotel room where Andrews is believed to have stayed is much larger than
it was then and includes exhibits on the train chase. There’s a replica of a bed
that likely held two or three tired men, furnishings and a mannequin of a
determined Andrews looking down at the W&A tracks (the line is now used by
CSX).
The raiders didn’t
get much sleep on a night filled with anxiety and expectation. According to
William Pittenger, one of the soldiers, some participants called for Andrews to
call off the operation.
“I will
succeed or leave my bones in Dixie,” the spy replied.
Startled conductor springs into action
Early the
morning of the 12th, a gray, rainy day, the men bought tickets to different destinations
in order to avoid suspicion. They boarded the General and road eight miles
north to Big Shanty, now known as Kennesaw.
Andrews mannequin in Marietta |
The raiders
stayed on the train while others went to the Lacy Hotel to enjoy a quick
breakfast. They uncoupled most of the cars and sped off. Their objective was to
disrupt the vital rail line that transported Rebel soldiers and supplies from Atlanta to
Chattanooga, where they were then sent to other critical locations in the
Western Theater. The men intended to destroy
track, trestles, bridges and telegraph lines.
Western & Atlantic conductor William A. Fuller was shocked at the sight of his train chugging away. He and a couple others ran after the train, unaware of the subterfuge.
The conductor ran across a handcar and three trains and 86 miles later
he -- along with Confederate horsemen who had been reached by telegraph -- had
chased Andrews to a few miles south of Chattanooga, Tenn. Out of fuel
and water for the locomotive, Andrews and his party fled, only to be captured.
A lot of things worked against the saboteurs – the wet weather made it
tough to set fire to wood and the tenacious Fuller just wouldn’t give up. The
dogged pursuit left them little opportunity to cause mayhem. And there was a crucial
delay that slowed the General.
The raiders had to wait for almost an hour at Kingston while several
southbound freight trains cleared the tracks. Confederates switched to the locomotive Texas in Adairsville and ran it in reverse.
Board describes the fate of each Union raider |
Aware they were being chased, the Yankees cut telegraph lines when they
went through Calhoun. In Resaca, they detached a rail car and set it on
fire on the rail bridge in hopes of burning it down. The bridge was not burned
completely because of a rainstorm.
The gig was up near Ringgold as the General ran out of steam. Eight of
the 20 captured raiders were tried as spies and executed in Atlanta. The rest
either escaped or were exchanged, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia.
Hotel largely escaped the flames
That wasn’t the end of the Civil War story for Fletcher House. It and
other buildings in Marietta served as hospitals for both Federal and Confederate
soldiers. A morgue was upstairs.
Surviving fireplaces |
“During the summer of 1864, forces under the command of William Tecumseh
Sherman moved in and occupied the town,” the Marietta city website says.
“For
the next five months, federal troops would pillage by day and ravage by night.
In November 1864, men under the command of Union General Hugh Kilpatrick,
Sherman's ‘merchant of terror,’ set the town on fire. ‘Uncle Billy's’ boys were
leaving for the heart of Georgia on ‘The March to the Sea.”
The story goes that Fletcher House was spared because Fletcher, like
Sherman, was a Mason, and Cole, his son-in-law, was a Yankee spy. Ashes
from the fire did destroy the building’s fourth floor.
The hotel after the war was renamed Kennesaw House and stayed in operations for
several more decades, giving way to retail space on the first floor. The
building was gutted in 1979, and the remodeled space hosted restaurants,
offices and retail. It’s been home to the Marietta Museum of History since
1996.
Next door is the town’s welcome center, housed in a depot (1898) built on the site of the original station.
Next door is the town’s welcome center, housed in a depot (1898) built on the site of the original station.
And what became of the General and Texas, the locomotives made famous by
the seven-hour chase?
The General is on display at the Southern Museum of Civil War and
Locomotive History in Kennesaw. The Texas was recently restored and will be a
highlight of the Atlanta Cyclorama when it reopens later this year at the
Atlanta History Center.