William Allen Fuller

William Allen Fuller (April 15, 1836 – December 28, 1905) was a conductor on the Western & Atlantic Railroad during the American Civil War era. He was most noted for his role in the 1862 Great Locomotive Chase, a daring sabotage mission and raid conducted by spies of the Union Army in northern Georgia. Fuller's determined pursuit prevented the Union agents from driving a captured train north to Tennessee and the Union lines.

Fuller was born at Morrow Station in rural Henry County, Georgia, to William Alexander Fuller. He was educated in local schools and married quite young.

He began working for the Western & Atlantic Railroad on September 8, 1855, at the age of 19. By the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Fuller served as a conductor on trains running from Atlanta.

On the morning of April 12, 1862, the locomotive General was stopped at Big Shanty (now Kennesaw, Georgia) so that the crew and passengers could have breakfast. While they were dining in the Lacey Hotel, Federal spy James J. Andrews and his party of Union volunteers commandeered the General, its tender, and a few boxcars and steamed northward. An astonished Fuller chased the stolen train by foot and then by handcar. At Etowah, Fuller commandeered another locomotive, the old Yonah, and took it north to Kingston, Georgia, keeping up the pressure on Andrews. The raiders began raising rails and cutting telegraph wires to delay their pursuers, although an attempt to burn a covered bridge failed. At Kingston, Fuller took command of the newer, faster William R. Smith and headed north to Adairsville. The tracks two miles (3 km) south of Adairsville were broken by the raiders and Fuller had to run the two miles by foot.

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