The spy and the saboteurs: Men who instigated the 'Great Locomotive Chase' stayed here the night before daring raid

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.

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.