The raiders were pushed so closely that they soon found it necessary to
abandon their engine and car. Three miles north of Ringgold, they slowed
down a little, and, seizing a favorable opportunity, tumbled out, and
fled through the woods in all directions. It might be supposed that
Captain Fuller would be satisfied with recapturing his locomotive, which
was in all respects a remarkable achievement. But he had other views. He
knew that there would be no safety for the road with the bridge burners
at large, and so he made up his mind to be satisfied with nothing less
than their capture. In passing through Ringgold, three miles back, he
had noticed a company of militia drilling in an old field. So he sent
word to the commanding officer by his engineer, Peter Bracken (who, with
his fireman, took the two locomotives back to Ringgold), to mount his
men as promptly as possible, and join in the chase of the fugitives.
This message dispatched, Captain Fuller and two of his men, Fleming Cox
and Alonzo Martin, ran into the woods after the fleeing raiders.
Jeff Cain, the engineer of the "General," had been left with the Rome
locomotive. Mr. Antony Murphy remained in the chase until the "General"
was recaptured, and returned to Ringgold with the two locomotives.
All the raiders were caught and imprisoned. Andrews was known to be a
spy, and he, with seven of his men who could establish no connection
with the Federal army in any branch of the service, was hanged.
Six escaped, and made their way to the Federal lines. The rest were
regularly exchanged.
Perhaps those that were hanged deserved a better fate. They were brave
to recklessness, and were engaged in the boldest adventure of the war.
Their scheme was most skillfully planned, and courageously undertaken,
and if it had succeeded,--if the bridges had been burned and the door
of the Confederate granaries closed,--the result would have been what
it was when Sherman, with a large army, and at the sacrifice of many
men and much treasure, closed the State Road to the Confederates in
Virginia.
Andrews and his men came near accomplishing, by one bold stroke, pretty
much all that Sherman accomplished in crippling the Confederates. It was
only by the merest chance that they had such a man as Captain Fuller to
oppose them. If they had arrived at Marietta the day before or the day
after, the probability is that they would have succeeded in their daring
venture. Captain Fuller was more than the equal of Andrews in all those
qualities that sustain men in moments of great emergency, and greatly
his superior in those moral acquirements that lead men to take risks and
make sacrifices on behalf of their convictions, and in the line of their
duty.
THE RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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