Great Locomotive Chase

The Great Locomotive Chase or Andrews' Raid was a military raid that occurred on April 12, 1862, in northern Georgia during the American Civil War. Volunteers from the Union Army, led by civilian scout James J. Andrews, commandeered a train and took it northward toward Chattanooga, Tennessee, doing as much damage as possible to the vital Western and Atlantic Railroad (W&A) line from Atlanta to Chattanooga as they went. They were pursued by Confederate forces at first on foot, and later on a succession of locomotives for 87 miles.

Because the Union men had cut the telegraph wires, the Confederates could not send warnings ahead to forces along the railway. Confederates eventually captured the raiders and executed some quickly as spies, including Andrews; some others were able to flee. Some of the raiders were the first to be awarded the Medal of Honor by the US Congress for their actions. As a civilian, Andrews was not eligible.

Major General Ormsby M. Mitchel, commanding Federal troops in middle Tennessee, sought a way to contract or shrink the extent of the northern and western borders of the Confederacy; by pushing them permanently away from; and, out of, contact with the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. This could be done; by first, a southward, and then and eastward penetration from the Union base at Nashville, that seized and severed the Memphis & Charleston Railroad between Memphis and Chattanooga (at that time (1862/63) there was no other railway link between the Mississippi river and the east). And then, captured the water and railway junction of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Thereby severing the Western Confederacy's contact with both the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys.

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