Local News

Great Locomotive Chase had local ties

Civil War raid to be remembered at talk

EAST LIVERPOOL -- The Andrews Raid, also known as the Great Locomotive Chase, was a celebrated military adventure of the Civil War.

Retired journalist, author and humorist Fred Miller will put his own spin on the legendary raid in a talk entitled "Daring, Suffering and No Way to Steal a Locomotive" Sept. 19, at the East Liverpool Community Center.

A special feature in the afternoon prior to Miller's talk will be an opportunity for gaming enthusiasts to try their hand at a new strategic board game: "Engine Thieves," based on the raid. Demonstrating it will be Gregg Pittenger of Columbus, developer of the game and a great-great-nephew of Knoxville-native William "Will" Pittenger, a participant in the raid who wrote books popularizing it.

Miller's talk is to begin at 7 p.m. Pittenger will have the board game set up for play after 3 p.m. The community center's address is 110 Maine Blvd. The events, part of the center's lecture series, are open to the public.

"This is the first adult-level game based on the raid," Pittenger said. "It has been extensively play-tested and is under contract to be commercially available starting in January by Compass Games."

On April 12, 1862, Will Pittenger, a volunteer Union soldier, was among 19 soldiers and two civilians who stole the locomotive General from under the noses of 3,000 Confederate troops at Big Shanty, Ga. Their risky mission was to drive it more than 100 miles north to Union Army forces, cutting telegraph wires, burning railroad bridges and damaging track.

It was not rebel soldiers who initially set out in chase. It was the locomotive's outraged conductor and engineer, and a foreman. "Soldiers laughed at them as they set out running after the train," Miller said, "but they were tenacious, pursuing by foot and commandeering southbound trains to join the chase. The raid might have succeeded but for them."

Although a military failure, news of the seven-hour rail chase thrilled Union supporters at the time, and has endured in the national mythology as a tale of bravery and daring. The raiders did steal the locomotive but were chased, captured and imprisoned after doing relatively little damage to the railroad. Some were hanged as spies, some escaped, and some were paroled back to the North. Pittenger and most of the participating soldiers were among the first to be awarded the newly authorized Congressional Medal of Honor.

Will Pittenger wrote several books about the raid. The first, "Daring and Suffering: A History of the Great Railroad Adventure," went through multiple printings after its publication in 1863. A 1926 silent film, "The General" by a youthful Buster Keaton, and a 1956 Disney movie starring Fess Parker leaned heavily on Pittenger's account of the raid.

Wes Crawford, designer of the new board game, said, "A Union spy named James J. Andrews did a lot of traveling in the South and came up with an idea. He said, if we could cut the railroad connection between Chattanooga and Atlanta, reinforcements could not come up from Atlanta."

Andrews convinced Union generals commanding Ohio volunteer regiments in Tennessee that they could follow up such a raid with a thrust into the heart of the Confederacy.

When Pittenger heard whispers of fellow soldiers being recruited for a secret mission, he sought out those involved and volunteered for it.

Miller said he became interested in the Andrew's Raid when he was researching his own family history and ran across information saying he might be related to Will Pittenger.

"The Andrews Raid was brilliantly conceived but executed on the fly, without detailed information and preparations," Miller said. "I was struck by all the local connections to the raid in addition to Will Pittenger. A Salineville man who was not even a soldier joined the raid, and was among those hanged. So was the mastermind, John J. Andrews, who was born in Holiday's Cove, now Weirton. The man who decided to award the Medal of Honor to the raiders, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, was from Steubenville."

Miller said he found abundant humor and irony in researching the Andrews Raid.

"The raiders wore civilian clothes and made their way south in small groups, walking and riding unchallenged on the very rail line they planned to destroy. Their cover stories were all the same, that they were Kentuckians from Fleming County loyal to the South who wanted to enlist at Atlanta," Miller said. "Two were taken at their word and forced to enlist immediately in the Confederate Army. They were among troops defending Chattanooga as their fellow raiders approached the stolen locomotive."

In 2014 Gregg Pittenger spoke at a dedication ceremony for a monument to Will Pittenger in his home place of Knox Township. An historical marker for Andrews was placed at the Weirton library in 2016. The history section of the Schiappa Branch of the Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County has compiled information on Will Pittenger, including correspondence he sent from the Army early in the war for publication in the (Steubenville) Weekly Herald.

Two of the locomotives involved in the chase, the General and the Texas, are displayed in Georgia museums.