The Railroad

Chartered by the State of Georgia in 1837, the Western & Atlantic Railroad was completed in 1850 over a winding 137-mile route from Atlanta, Georgia, to Chattanooga, Tennessee. At Allatoona, massive quantities of earth and stone were removed to create passage for a single railroad track through the mountain. Two years after the Great Locomotive Chase, General William T. Sherman's Union army pushed south from Tennessee toward Atlanta, and most of the battles of the Atlanta campaign took place within a short distance of this railroad supply line. The railroad abandoned the track to Allatoona Pass in the late 1940s when the route was relocated to avoid Lake Allatoona, then under construction. During the Civil War, railroads became vital supply lines to both North and South. On April 12, 1862, James Andrews and a group of mostly nonuniformed Union soldiers commandeered the locomotive General and a mixed freight-passenger train from Big Shanty, 13 miles south of Allatoona, intending to damage the railroad, destroy bridges, cut telegraph wires, and disrupt supplies to the Confederate army in Tennessee. Conductor William Fuller, engineer Jeff Cain, and Superintendent Anthony Murphy pursued them, first by pole cart and then with other Western & Atlantic locomotives after sabotage beyond Allatoona threw them from their car into a ditch, and they helped capture Andrews and the raiders later that day north of Ringgold, Georgia. Several of Andrews' Raiders became the first recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor, designed by Christian Schussel and approved by Congress on July 12, 1862, first awarded on March 25, 1863, and later extended to officers on March 3, 1863. During the Civil War, 1,195 soldiers and one civilian received the award. English-born Private James E. Croft of the 12th Battery, Wisconsin Light Artillery, received the Medal of Honor on March 20, 1897, for bravery during the Battle of Allatoona when, though wounded, he took the place of a gunner who had been shot down and inspired his comrades through effective gunnery against an approaching Confederate column.

Georgia · United States