The Stolen Train

Robert Ashley

• Publisher: Barakaldo Books
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781839745386
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

Can the small band of Union soldiers really make their daring plan work? Can they steal a train from the Confederates in broad daylight and run it all the way to Chattanooga?
If they succeed, the war would be shortened by months. If they fail, they face a spy's punishment: death by hanging.
This thrilling story is based on one of the most dramatic and heroic incidents of the Civil War.

1.—A Secret Mission

The morning of April 7, 1862, began like every other morning Private Johnnie Adams had known since joining the Ohio Volunteers. Reveille had rudely shattered his blissful dreams of a warm, soft bed at home and a leisurely, tasteful breakfast in the kitchen with his mother. From reveille on, everything had followed the accustomed pattern: a tasteless breakfast hurriedly cooked over a fire in front of his tent and just as hurriedly eaten, assignment to the cleanup detail, two hours of drill under the hot midmorning sun, then another tasteless meal. After lunch, Johnnie had disappeared into his tent, unrolled his blanket, and lain down for an early afternoon nap. By now he had developed a pessimistic attitude about the length of these naps. Invariably his military superiors dreamed up some insignificant assignment and used it as an excuse to interrupt his siesta. The April 7 nap was no exception. But this time the interruption was for no trivial purpose. Nor did the afternoon and evening of April 7 prolong the humdrum routine of the morning. Nor did the days that followed.

Johnnie had hardly closed his eyes after stretching out on his blanket, when the tent flap opened, a head popped in, and a voice said, “The Captain wants to see Private Adams.”

Here we go again, thought Johnnie resignedly, rising slowly from his blanket. “What does he want this time?” he grumbled aloud.

“Haven’t you heard?” said one of his tentmates. “General Mitchel’s going to make you his aide.”

“No, better’n that,” said another mock-serious voice. “Abe Lincoln wants a new Secretary of War.”

“Aw, shut up,” said Johnnie disgustedly, clapping his kepi on his head and stumbling through the tent flap out into the bright noonday sun.

The orderly who had summoned Johnnie was walking rapidly past the long row of tents toward the Captain’s quarters. Johnnie ran after him and, matching strides beside him, asked, “What’s the Captain want me for?” The orderly shrugged his shoulders. Disappointed, Johnnie kept silent. The Company С parade grounds were practically deserted; nearly all the soldiers were napping in their tents. Lucky stiffs, Johnnie thought. Still, it wasn’t everybody who got called by the Captain. Must be something more important than usual.

In a few minutes they reached the Company С headquarters. The Captain was talking to a lieutenant. The orderly saluted. “Private Adams, sir.” Johnnie saluted. “The Colonel wants to see you, Adams,” the Captain said, turning and walking back in the direction from which Johnnie had just come. Johnnie obediently followed his company commander across the parade ground. What is this? he wondered. The Captain wants to see you. The Colonel wants to see you. Next it’ll be the General wants to see you. Johnnie couldn’t decide whether he was more bewildered, curious, irritated, or proud. After all, the Colonel didn’t ask to see every soldier in the regiment. Still, you’d think they might tell a fellow what it was all about. You could ask an orderly, but not your company commander. Well, he’d just have to wait and see.

A group of men, both officers and soldiers, were gathered in front of the regimental headquarters. Johnnie recognized a few of them: Sergeant Marion Ross of Company A, Corporal William Pittenger of Company G, Private George Wilson of Company B, and Private Perry Shadrack of Company K. As Johnnie and the Captain came up, an aide detached himself from the group and went into the headquarters tent. In a few seconds he reappeared, followed by the regimental commander. The group snapped to attention and saluted. “Here’s the man from Company C,” the aide said to the Colonel. “They’re all here now, sir.”

“This one?” The Colonel looked at Johnnie a little doubtfully. “Are you sure he’ll do?”

The Captain spoke up. “Yes, sir. He’ll do. He’s just what you asked for.”

The Colonel nodded. “Very well, Captain.” Then turning toward the group, “General Mitchel wants to see you men immediately.”

Johnnie gulped. The General! He hadn’t really expected to see the General. Pride now overmastered all other emotions. He had been a little hurt by the Colonel’s question, but the Captain’s reply had restored his self-esteem. He was just what the Colonel asked for. He still didn’t know what the Colonel had asked for, but whatever it was, he was it. He supposed the General would clear up the mystery. Maybe one of the other men knew. As they started off toward the divisional headquarters, he fell in beside Corporal Pittenger.

“What’s this all about, Pit?” he asked.

“Haven’t the slightest idea,” replied Pittenger. “Must be something big or we wouldn’t be going to see the General.”

They had now reached the divisional headquarters, a small wooden frame house. “Wait here, men,” said the Colonel. He turned to an officer standing in front of the headquarters. “The men from the Second Regiment are here.” The officer went into the house. A few moments later the door opened and out stepped a wiry, stern-looking little man wearing the single star of a brigadier general. It was Ormsby Mitchel, Commanding General of the Third Division, Army of the Ohio. The group came to attention and the Colonel saluted. “Here are the volunteers from the Second Regiment, General.”

Johnnie’s eyes popped. Volunteers! He hadn’t volunteered for anything. Even a raw rookie like himself knew better than to do that. But the Colonel called them volunteers, so that was that.

“At ease,” said General Mitchel, eyeing the “volunteers” sharply and, it seemed to Johnnie, not too approvingly. No wonder, thought Johnnie; they weren’t a very impressive-looking group. General Mitchel’s glance rested on Johnnie. “Who’s this?” he snapped. Johnnie nearly jumped out of his skin. “I asked for men, not boys.” Johnnie blushed, and then blushed again at having blushed the first time. He could hardly blame the General—he was only fifteen and didn’t look much older. If the recruiting officer had been at all particular, he couldn’t have enlisted, but at that time they were taking anybody who’d offer himself.

This time the regimental commander came to Johnnie’s defense. “Begging your pardon, sir, you asked for a soldier who could run like a deer and climb like a monkey. Private Adams can do both.” Once again Johnnie’s heart swelled with pride. He was small, but he was tough, lithe, and wiry. He could beat anyone in the regiment at sprinting or climbing a greased pole.

General Mitchel grunted and turned to the next man, Pittenger. “What’s he here for? He’d look better in a pulpit than in the army.” Johnnie had to admit that General Mitchell was right. Pittenger, though strong and healthy, wore spectacles and looked like a scholar. Before the war he had taught school and studied law; after the war he planned to enter the ministry. Once again the Colonel came to the rescue.

“He has a mind like a steel trap, and he could talk his way into Jeff Davis’ cabinet. He’s a student of astronomy, too.” This last was a shrewd touch, for Mitchel was probably the leading astronomer in America. He had been a professor of astronomy for most of his life after graduating from West Point, and he had built one of the first observatories in the country. Behind his back, his men called him “Old Stars.”

“What difference does that make?” Mitchel snorted, but Johnnie could see that he was pleased as he passed on to Sergeant Ross. One look at Ross and the General’s mood changed again. “Where does this fellow think he is? Parading down Fifth Avenue?” Again Johnnie could hardly blame Old Stars. Hair neatly brushed, beard carefully combed, every button polished to a bright shine, uniform immaculate—Ross could have stepped off the parade ground into a ballroom. “I suppose,” said Mitchel dryly to the Colonel, “you can vouch for the Sergeant, too.”

“Yes, sir. There’s not a better non-com in the regiment.” That satisfied Mitchel. He went on down the line, hurling taunts at each man and firing questions at the Colonel. Even Johnnie could see that he was testing each soldier, evaluating his fitness for some yet unrevealed mission. The little General fascinated Johnnie. Facially, he reminded Johnnie of the picture of Andrew Jackson hanging in the parlor back home. He had the same bushy gray hair, the same piercing eyes deep set beneath beetling brows, the same straight nose, the same determined lines about the mouth, and the same firm chin. You could hardly say that his soldiers loved him, but they certainly trusted him. He expected and got a high standard of performance from both soldiers and officers. In the short time since he had taken over the Third Division, he had shaped it into a first-class fighting unit.

His inspection over, General Mitchel nodded to the Colonel. “They’ll do. No engineers?”

“No, sir,” answered the Colonel.

“Too bad,” said Mitchel. “Any in the other regiments?”

“Yes, sir. I think Colonel Neibling of the Twenty-first has a couple for you.”

Mitchel now addressed himself to the soldiers standing at ease before him. “Men, you have volunteered for a secret mission of extreme importance to our cause.” At the word “volunteered” there was a suggestion of a smile and a twinkle in the General’s eye. So Old Stars has a sense of humor after all, Johnnie thought. The General continued. “This mission will place you in the greatest personal danger. You will wear civilian clothes and go deep into enemy territory. It is only fair to warn you that if caught you may be hanged as spies. No one is under orders to accept a role in this undertaking. If you do not wish to go, you may back out honorably by so informing your company commander. If you do wish to go, you are to purchase civilian clothes in Shelbyville this afternoon. You are also to provide yourselves with pistols, but no other weapons. Get yourselves a couple days’ rations. Do not carry on your person any mail or other identifying papers.

“Whether you decide to go or not, the utmost secrecy must be preserved. You are to say nothing about the mission to anyone outside this group. Men are also being selected from the other two Ohio regiments in Colonel Sill’s brigade, and you may see them in Shelbyville. But you are not to discuss the mission with them.

“Your leader is Mr. James Andrews. I trust him implicitly. You will meet him shortly after dark tonight on the Wartrace road a mile or so out of town.

“I can tell you no more. All further information will come from your leader.” General Mitchel turned on his heel and disappeared into his headquarters.

That night at dusk Johnnie, Ross, and Pittenger left Shelbyville, a small Tennessee town a short distance from camp, and started down the road to Wartrace. For a few minutes the three soldiers walked on quietly, each busy with his own thoughts. Finally, Ross broke the silence. “Who’s this Andrews?”

Johnnie didn’t know, but Pittenger did. “A secret agent working for the Army of the Ohio, one of the best in the business. He’s made several trips deep into Southern territory.”

“Several trips?” Ross was amazed. “Those fellows usually don’t last that long. Two or three trips and they’re caught. Or they decide to quit before their luck runs out. How’s he lasted so long?”

“He’s a Southerner, native son of Virginia, adopted son of Kentucky. He’s every inch the Southern gentleman—that tends to lull suspicion.”

Ross persisted. “I still don’t see how he’s survived several secret missions.”

“He’s worked out a foolproof system. Poses as a Southern sympathizer and land blockade-runner. Smuggles medical supplies into the South. That guarantees him passage through the Confederate lines. His trips back north to get more supplies give him the opportunity to relay information to the Union generals without exciting the suspicions of his Confederate friends. As long as he carries medical goods to the South, the Confederates won’t touch him. If he gets picked up by Northern soldiers, he can refer his captors to his Union superiors. Pretty ingenious, a Union secret agent posing as a Confederate secret agent.”

Ross wasn’t convinced. “He’ll play his string out and get caught one of these days. Just our luck to have him fail this time and drag us down with him. I don’t like the way this thing has been planned. ‘Meet Mr. Andrews on the Wartrace road a mile or two out of town shortly after dark.’ Pretty vague. We don’t even know what Andrews looks like.”

“Anyone who isn’t smart enough to And Andrews isn’t smart enough to go on the mission. We’re being tested before it’s too late,” replied Pittenger.

Johnnie spoke for the first time. “I wonder what the mission is.”

“Something that involves the skill of engineers and your knack for running and climbing,” said Pittenger.

“Yeah, but what kind of engineers?” asked Ross.

“Locomotive engineers is my guess. Andrews has just returned from an attempt to seize a train on the Western and Atlantic Railroad. He had eight men from Company С disguised as Southern citizens. They were going to capture a locomotive near Atlanta and take it north to Chattanooga, burning bridges, tearing up track, and cutting telegraph wires. An engineer on the railroad whom Andrews knew as a Union sympathizer was going to run the locomotive for him. He never showed up, so they had to abandon the scheme.”

“It wouldn’t have worked anyhow,” was Ross’s comment.

“Maybe not. But Andrews thought it would and probably still thinks so. If I were a betting man, I’d wager a week’s pay that Andrews is going to try aga...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• MAP
• The Great Locomotive Chase
• 1.-A Secret Mission
• 2.-James J. Andrews
• 3.-Rendezvous at Marietta
• 4.-A New Crew for The General
• 5.-The General Heads North
• 6.-The Red Flag
• 7.-A Whistle from the South
• 8.-Pursued!
• 9.-Pittenger Has a Plan
• 10.-The End of the Line
• 11.-Down the Tennessee River
• Epilogue