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America Accidentally Attacked the Soviet Union and Other Lesser Known History Moments

Khalid Elhassan February 27, 2020 34 min

Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star - Aircraft — American F-80s in action during the Korean War. Squdron

11. End of the Chase

The raiders burned a railway car in a covered bridge in an attempt to thwart their pursuers. Wikimedia

Things started going wrong for Andrews and his raiders when they tried burning a wooden railroad bridge. Heavy rains had left the structure too waterlogged to catch on fire, so Andrews and his moved on, leaving the bridge intact behind them. That gave their pursuers a clear path to follow them on a stern chase. When the pursuers finally reached an intact telegraph line, they sounded the alarm, and the raiders were blocked. Halting the train on the outskirts of Ringgold, Georgia, Andrews ordered his men to disembark and scatter into the wilderness.

End of The Great Locomotive Chase, as the raiders abandon The General and scatter. American Civil War Forum

Many were captured over the next few days, then tried by the Confederates for “acts of unlawful belligerency”. Andrews and seven of his men were convicted and hanged in June of 1862. Eight raiders, however, managed to escape, and the rest were released in a prisoner exchange in March, 1863. Participants were among the first-ever recipients of the newly created Medal of Honor. Unfortunately, Andrews was not among them: as a civilian, he was ineligible.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.