The Great Locomotive Chase: First Medals of Honor | US Train History | Extra History

Big Shanty Georgia April 12th 1862 conductor William a fuller checks his engine the general before taking his break during the Train's breakfast stop and as he walks into the hotel for a quick bite he thinks maybe he should alert someone about the 20 men who gotten on at the last stop they were furtive and tense probably Confederate deserters but before he can do that or spoon up some eggs he hears something strange the huffing of his beloved machine outside the general has decoupled from a Passenger cars and is pulling away and aboard he sees the suspicious men not deserters Train Robbers he then pursues the shortened train on foot trying his hardest to catch his engine falling behind as he shouts for help from passers by but listen all y'all this is no robbery it's sabotage those are train [Music] noises today's historical Heist is made possible by our crater owned and operated streaming service nebula where you can get access to our next series two whole weeks early and adree aboard the general James J Andrews is watching William Fuller drop further and further behind ah they've done it after all of the planning all of the preparation they're heading north on a hijacked Confederate train now Andrews is not a soldier in fact exactly what he is remains a subject of conjecture to this day he'd held a string of odd jobs over the course of his life including smuggling medicine across the union blockade but he'd come to the attention of the Union Army for his Services as a scout and spy and he'd pitched them on an audacious sabotage operation he and a Strike Team would infiltrate into enemy territory capture a locomotive and run it northward destroying Railways Bridges and Telegraph lines behind them this would help isolate Confederate forces in Tennessee from the rest of the Rebel States and prepare the ground for the union to move in and capture the major r way Junction at Chattanooga to the Union Generals now working with depleted forces as combat moved West it was worth a shot but Andrew's first raid was called off after they' reached the Target only to find that the trains engineer a secret Union sympathizer had been transferred they got back safely but the eight Raiders who'd accompanied him weren't Keen to go again because if found they would be hanged as spies so he appealed to three regiments of Ohio troops for volunteers my name is James J Andrews and I'm putting together a special team I need me 20 soldiers 20 railroad loving soldiers we're going to be sneaking into Georgia dressed as civilians and we're going to be doing one thing and one thing only stealing trains and I want my trains okay of course not so Tarantino but you get the picture and now Andrews had his train in fact the operation had gone swimmingly 20 of the 24 Raiders actually made it onto the train two had been caught assumed to be deserters and pressed into a Confederate artillery regiment while two others had gotten to the hotel where the team met but then overslept and missed the train which is a five I can personally relate with but the main Force had remained undetected and were now heading north which is ironically when things went South see they couldn't exactly sneak South while carrying a bunch of equipment and gunpowder so they didn't have any actual tools to sabotage the rails Andrews managed to borrow a crowbar during one of the train scheduled stops but that didn't do much next they' collected railroad ties as firewood to burn any bridges that they crossed but it had been raining for days so nothing would light the best they could do was cut telegraph cables mostly by hooking the things as they passed and using the momentum of the train to pull them down also people in the towns they passed were getting suspicious see back then rail employees were well known in the towns they passed through sort of like your local mail carriers it was always the same crew so then when it was suddenly a bunch of new guys that's a little weird they also kept getting snarled in traffic of course the Raiders knew that the General's route involved scheduled stops to let other trains pass but the war had meant a lot of delayed trains and rerouting meaning that the weights stretched longer than usual hard to have a car chase in traffic you know and make no mistake it was a Chase because their biggest problem was that they were being followed by who you ask who exactly was this small figure in the distance disappearing when they stoked the engine and then reappearing when they stopped William Fuller yeah the determined conductor apparently never skipped leg day because he was doggedly still following them on foot after miles granted a fairly normal thing for rail employees to do for they often had to run ahead of or behind trains at least he was running at first because soon Andrew saw a vehicle coming around the bend it was Fuller but now he'd found a handar and he was pumping his way towards his beloved machine still they left him behind until an old train engine started checking up behind them because Fuller had upgraded again now their train was being chased by another train worse still an interchange switch operator suspicious refused to change the tracks to let the general head north when Andrews did it himself well it was clear they weren't just some new rail crew that'd be like going into the tower at an airport and clearing a plane for takeoff when it wasn't its turn so the game was up the Confederates were alerted and all they could do was run then there was a tense moment when another locomotive approached them from the opposite direction a powerful engine the Texas presumably carrying soldiers Andrews and his crew held their breath and it went past that was close wait no a minute later it appeared again behind them rather than turning around it was simply now running in reverse and who was on the Caboose Fuller the Raiders began throwing railroad ties out the back hoping to stop the engine Fuller's men simply knocked them aside with bars then Andrew's crew decoupled one box car after another hoping to cause a collision with the Texas but get this with Fuller's Train Running In Reverse he could could just hook them up to his train and make it bigger and when they sighted the smoke of another train ahead Andrews knew it was time to bug out they scattered into the woods hoping a few of them would make it but there were Confederate units mustering all over the countryside and the search parties were just too big every Raider was caught even the two who'd missed the train because a hotel porter hadn't woken them up on time Andrews managed to escape from prison but was recaptured the same day then after a trial that only lasted hours he was hanged as a spy strangling rather than having his neck broken because he was so tall that his feet hit the ground when he was dropped several others were executed before the South seemed to lose their stomach for it after all despite the Mayhem little damage was done and no one was actually killed so the prospect of 22 executions started to look a little disproportionate the rest of the Raiders miraculously eventually made it back alive the two that were pressed into service later deserted and made it back to Union lines eight of those held as prisoners of War escaped breaking up into pairs six made their way North while two sort of brilliantly went South instead making it to Florida they got their hands on a boat and rode out to a US Naval vessel blockading the port then the remaining six were traded in a prisoner exchange later in the war and they returned to all find themselves laed as Heroes both in newspapers and in a special New Way sensing the war weariness of the country in 1862 the war department had decided to raise morale by creating a medal for bravery much as the British Empire had done done 6 years before with the Victoria Cross yet by the time the Raiders arrived back in the prisoner Exchange in March of 1863 it had not yet been awarded so on March 25th seven of the Raiders found themselves in the office of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton receiving their nation's highest and at the time only award for Valor in combat private Jacob parrot who had been beaten as a prisoner was the first and it's really interesting to note how these Awards set the mold for what the Medal of Honor would become the recipients were all military the civilians including Andrews did not receive it and after the presentation they met Lincoln at the White House who personally thanked them a ritual which continues to this day over the next several years more Raiders would get the award helping set the president that it could be awarded postumus and the fact that this was a failed operation that killed zero enemy soldiers hammered home that this was not an award for victory or inflicting violence but rather doing one's duty under extreme Danger today both locomotives the general and the Texas reside in museums and the executed Raiders are buried together near a monument to the raid the event has been the subject of two films including a silent Buster Keaton comedy the general considered a treasure of early Hollywood seriously if you haven't seen it you should check it out it's pretty good Andrews failed to capture Chattanooga but his raid did capture our imaginations ever since and Imagination is a hell of a drug like could you imagine say I don't know a place where hundred of your favorite creators not only post their videos early and adree but also we're constantly making new big concept Originals you can't see anywhere else wait a minute that place exists it's no secret by now that we are super proud of nebula a streaming platform that's run by all of us creators we put every one of our videos up there early and AD free which makes it the perfect place to binge our hundreds of back catalog episodes plus you can even see the first episode of our next extra history series on HIPAA of Alexandria right now two whole 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Channel: Extra History

Views: 202,132

Keywords: civil war, train heist, history, extra history, usa, world history, history channel, documentary, history documentary, history explained, weird history, explained, animated history, animated, animated stories, educational, civilization, ancient history, american history, us history, us civil war, william fuller, union army, confederate railroad, confederate army, locomotive, the texas locomotive, the general locomotive, james j andrews, train robbery, medal of bravery

Id: GFy9p1KB8SA

Length: 11min 8sec (668 seconds)

Published: Sat May 11 2024