In April 1862, a group of over twenty Union soldiers, predominantly from Ohio units and led by a civilian named James Andrews, volunteered for a special mission behind the Confederate lines. Dressed as civilians and claiming to be Kentuckians desiring to join the Confederate army, the men filtered through the Confederate lines in small groups, rendezvousing in Big Shanty, Georgia (today known as Kennesaw) just north of Atlanta.
Their mission was to seize and take control of the northbound train to Chattanooga, destroying track, burning bridges, and cutting telegraph lines as they headed north to Chattanooga. Simultaneously a Union army under General Ormsby Mitchell was to descend on Chattanooga from the west with the destruction done by Andrews and his men preventing Confederate reinforcements being sent from Atlanta to oppose Mitchell’s threat to Chattanooga.
As the crew of the engine, “General”, ate breakfast in Big Shanty on the morning of April 12, 1862, Andrews and his men, seized the train and started north on their mission to destroy the Western & Atlantic RR all the way to Chattanooga. However, rain, unscheduled traffic on the railroad, and the unrelenting pursuit of the General’s conductor, William Fuller, prevented Andrews and his “raiders” from completing their planned destruction of the railroad. Running out of fuel near Ringgold, Georgia with their pursuers close behind, the raiders took to the woods.
The graves of Privates Shadrach and Wilson, located at the Chattanooga National Cemetery, who were recently presented the Medal of Honor.
All of the raiders were eventually captured and imprisoned in the Swims Jail in Chattanooga. Being dressed in civilian clothes and being behind Confederate lines, all were charged by the Confederate government as spies. Eight men, including Andrews and Privates Shadrach and Wilson were taken to Atlanta, tried by court martial as spies, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged. On June 18, 1862, the sentence was carried out and the eight men were hanged and buried in Atlanta. Just after the war, these men’s remains were removed from Atlanta and reinterred in the Chattanooga National Cemetery. In 1891, the State of Ohio erected a monument topped by a bronze facsimile of the General over their graves.
Eventually, the remaining Andrews’s Raiders still imprisoned were exchanged in a prisoner swap for Confederate soldiers. Those men who were exchanged, having participated in what the White House recently called one of the U. S. Army’s “earliest special operations”, were chosen to be the first recipients of a newly created military medal called the Medal of Honor. Raider Jacob Parrott received the first Medal of Honor bestowed by the government to the exchanged Andrews’s Raiders.
Medals were later presented, posthumously, to several of the Raiders who were hung. However, Privates Wilson and Shadrach were overlooked, possibly because they had no immediate family to represent them. Recently, that historical oversight was corrected and soon their graves will have the gold lettered tombstones that denotes a Medal of Honor recipient. Ironically, James Andrews, who conceived and lead the raid, is ineligible to receive the Medal of Honor due to his civilian status.
We hope you will review TCWPA’s Statewide Preservation Plan which provides a dynamic process that compiles battlefield site data, identifies opportunities and priorities, manages information, and facilitates preservation strategies. Check out our new interactive map which features 122 battlefield sites at https://www.tcwpa.org/preservation-plan/.
