THE GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE: TRIALS, TRIBULATIONS, AND TRIUMPHS

Introduction

In 1863, while Knoxville was occupied by the Army of the Confederacy, twelve Union raiders,1 who were charged with commandeering a train in Georgia in what became the “Great Locomotive Chase,” were put on trial. This, in brief, is their story.

The Chase

The Great Locomotive Chase, also known as the Andrews Raid of April 12, 1862, brought the first Union soldiers into north Georgia and led to an exciting locomotive chase, the only one of the Civil War (1861-65). The adventure lasted just seven hours and involved about two dozen men. As a military operation, and from a tactical standpoint, it ended in failure. It was, however, a huge success in terms of boosting the morale of Union soldiers. In early spring 1862, Northern forces advanced on Huntsville, Alabama, heading for Chattanooga, Tennessee. Union general Ormsby Mitchel accepted the offer of a civilian spy, James J. Andrews, to lead a raiding party behind Confederate lines to Atlanta, steal a locomotive, and race northward, destroying track, telegraph lines, and bridges toward Chattanooga. The raid thus aimed to knock out the Western and Atlantic Railroad, which supplied Confederate forces at Chattanooga, just as Mitchel’s army advanced.

On April 7, Andrews chose twenty-two volunteers from three Ohio infantry regiments, plus one civilian. In plain clothes, they slipped through the lines to Chattanooga and made their way to Big Shanty (present-day Kennesaw, Georgia), which was purposely chosen for the train jacking because it had no telegraph. While crew and passengers ate breakfast, the raiders uncoupled most of the cars. At about 6 a.m. they steamed out of Big Shanty aboard a locomotive nicknamed “The General.” 2 Pursuit began immediately, when three railroad workers ran after the locomotive, eventually commandeering a locomotive of their own. Aware they were being chased, Andrews’s men cut the telegraph lines and pried up rails. Ultimately, the General ran out of steam, literally, and the raiders were captured by Confederate troops. 3

The Trials

Twelve of the raiders who came to be known as the “Knoxville Dozen” were taken by their captors to Knoxville for trial. It was presumed that they would choose a fellow Union officer to defend them, which was the custom of the day. However, the defendants had other ideas. Instead, they convinced prominent Knoxville Judge Oliver P. Temple and his law partner, John Baxter, to represent them. Judge Temple spent much of the first half of the war providing legal defense for Unionists who had been charged with treason by Confederate authorities. John Baxter ultimately served as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Circuit Courts for the Sixth Circuit from 1877 to 1886. 4 The firm of Temple & Baxter agreed to the engagement for a fee of $150.00 per case, each defendant giving his note for that sum, to be due and payable upon acquittal. The proceedings were convened in the courthouse we currently know as the “Historic Knox County Courthouse” and, according to trial transcripts, were conducted with an air of informality and indifference that would suggest that the outcome was a foregone conclusion. 5 At least one Confederate officer posted in Knoxville would later refer to the proceedings as a “kangaroo court” and as such, refused to serve as a juror. 6

Efforts of defense counsel to consolidate the cases into one trial failed. In terms of trial strategy, one defendant wrote in his diary, “Our plan of defense was to tell just who we were, and what we had done, and to claim that we were United States soldiers, detailed on a military expedition, and therefore entitled to the protection accorded to regular prisoners of war. Our lawyers were delighted with the course we took, and said that it had ‘deranged all the plans of the prosecution, and that they had not a particle of evidence against us and that if we were convicted now, it would be through mere prejudice and perjury on the part of the court.’” Unfortunately, the strategy did not sway the court, and all defendants were treated as spies, found guilty, and sentenced to “be hung by the neck until dead.” 7

Conclusion

In the end, eight of the condemned escaped to freedom, ultimately becoming the first soldiers to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Lincoln. The General likewise survived the ordeal and is on display at the Southern Museum of Civil War & Locomotive History in Kennesaw, Georgia.

1 Union soldiers who specialized in ambushes, surprise raids, and irregular styles of combat.

2 Built in 1855 by Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor in Paterson, New Jersey, The General provided freight and passenger service between Atlanta, Georgia, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, before the Civil War on the Western and Atlantic Railroad of the State of Georgia and later, the Western and Atlantic Railroad Company.

3 Bonds, R. S. (2007). Stealing the General: The Great Locomotive Chase and the First Medal of Honor. Westholme Pub Llc.

4 Oliver Perry Temple, “Judge John Baxter,” Notable Men of Tennessee (Cosmopolitan Press, 1912), pp. 66-74.

5 Pittenger, W. (1999). Daring and Suffering: A History of the Andrews Railroad Raid. Cumberland House Publishing.

6 Bonds, Russell S. Stealing the General: The Great Locomotive Chase and the First Medal of Honor. Westholme Pub Llc, 2007.

7 Id. at 77.

Barrister Bites

By: Angelia Morie Nystrom Long, Ragsdale & Waters, P.C.