Product Description

A thoroughly entertaining history of one of the most daring raids of the American Civil War. On April 12th 1862, during the American Civil War, a group of Union volunteers infiltrated the Confederate stronghold of Georgia and stole a steam engine named 'General'. Once in control of the locomotive, they raced back towards friendly territory - destroying Confederate supply routes as they went and opening up the south to Union forces. If James J. Andrews' plan had worked, it could have dramatically altered the course of the war, but the General's young conductor had other ideas. At first he gave chase to the stolen locomotive on foot, then on a handcar, and finally on board another train until he forced the Unionists to abandon their plan as they ran out of fuel. Out of the original group of twenty volunteers, six of the survivors were awarded the very first American Medal of Honor by Abraham Lincoln."Stealing the General" is the first and most complete account of this momentous episode in American history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #133173 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781594160783
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A spy and trader in contraband led an ill-fated commando mission during the first year of the Civil War with these words: "Now my lads, you have been chosen by your officers to perform a most important service, which if successful, will change the whole aspect of the war, and aid materially in bringing an early peace to our distracted country." The episode, which formed the basis for one of Buster Keaton's best-known films, took place in April 1862, when 20 Union soldiers crossed Confederate lines to steal a locomotive called the General and destroy a critical Confederate supply line. In this gripping, smooth-running account of the raid and its aftermath, Atlanta lawyer and Civil War historian Bonds zooms effortlessly from broad-stroke overviews of Civil War strategy to minute-by-minute scrutiny of unfolding events on the ground. He sets up the story with a quick, punchy outline of the first year of the war. What follows is a fast-paced, extremely well-told tale of espionage, capture, trial and escape. Half the team was executed; the half that escaped received the newly established Medal of Honor. With its authoritative tone and refreshing accessibility, this should find a place on the nightstand of the general reader as well as the bookshelf of the Civil War enthusiast. BOMC,History Book Club and Military Book Club selections, Borders' Original Voices selection. 20,000 first printing. (Oct. 15)
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From The New Yorker
Stealing the General, by Russell S. Bonds (Westholme; $29.95). On April 12, 1862, twenty Union soldiers in disguise boarded a train in Georgia to execute a scheme that was meant to bring a quick end to the Civil War. The plan, devised by a quinine-smuggling Union scout and an astronomer turned general, was to steal a locomotive and drive it to Chattanooga, capturing a key railroad connection whose loss would cut the Confederacy in half. The raid might have succeeded if not for the train's conductor, who pursued the hijackers on foot ("this seemed to be funny to some of the crowd," he said later, "but it wasn't so to me") and then by handcar and a series of three engines. The Union men were captured, and eight were hung as spies; some of the survivors were later the first-ever recipients of the Medal of Honor. The chase became a contemporary legend - it's now best known as the basis of a Buster Keaton film - and Bonds's account, the first major study in decades, is thoroughly worthy of an expedition that, a Union officer wrote, "had the wildness of a romance."
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Review
"Magnificent and definitive." - Wall Street Journal"

Customer Reviews

Drama on the Rails
There has been such a deluge of books on the American Civil War in the past forty years - many of them thrown together with minimal research - that many readers might ask, do we really need another? Particularly a book written by a lawyer for Coca-Cola? In fact, Stealing the General is a remarkably good book that seems to escape the vicissitudes of more pedestrian efforts at Civil War history. Author Russell S. Bonds has not only carefully researched the details of the famous Andrews raid in April 1862, but he lays out the tale of train theft, capture, execution for some and escape for others in a dramatic and gripping fashion. Unlike most Civil War history, this book is a real page turner and even though most readers will know the broad details, the author displays an ability to fascinate the reader with details that are often not so well known. This book can be viewed on several levels: as a cautionary tale about one of America's first commando-style operations, as a demonstration of human resilience and ingenuity in the face of danger, and as a measuring point on a nation's attempt to quantify military valor. Stealing the General succeeds magnificently on all three levels.

Stealing the General is laid out in standard narrative format, with the opening chapters discussing the origins of the raid and the men involved on both sides. Most readers are not likely to be overly familiar with Union Brigadier General Ormsby Mitchell, an aggressive division commander in eastern Kentucky in the spring of 1862. Mitchell developed the plan with James J. Andrews, a smuggler and sometimes-Union intelligence operative that was familiar with Confederate railroad operations in Tennessee and Georgia. As the author explains, the basic plan was for Andrews to infiltrate behind enemy lines with over 20 disguised Union soldiers, steal an engine in Georgia then proceed back up the rail line toward Chattanooga, burning bridges and tearing up rails as he went. With the Confederate lines of communication disrupted, Mitchell would lead his troops to capture the isolated Chattanooga garrison in a coup de main. As the author describes it, the plan initially went well, with 22 of 24 raiders succeeding in infiltrating over 100 miles behind enemy lines and Mitchell succeeded in making a rapid advance into northern Alabama and northwestern Tennessee.

As a look at America's first real special forces operation, the Andrews raid reveals the impact of small "friction" factors that ultimately doomed the raid to failure. The well-known U.S. Army "6-P" rule was also in effect, in that Andrews failure to bring along any tools for removing rails prevented the raiders from doing much damage to the rail line. The author's narrative of the railroad chase and the capture of the raiders is well-told and first-rate drama. This part of the book, particularly the role of minor delays, reminds me of the 1945 "Hammelburg Raid" by Patton's troops, which was also doomed by minor delays. However, the military lessons of the Andrews Raid are limited by the fact that these were not specially trained soldiers and that there was a serious lack of small-unit leadership.

Readers may expect the narrative to wind down after the capture of all the readers, but the sections on the execution of Andrews and 7 raiders, then the incredible escape of 8 of the raiders from Atlanta are just as enthralling as the section on the raid itself. The final section concerns the awarding of the newly created Medal of Honor to most of the survivors, which is also quite well done. The narrative does begin to drag a bit in the final pages as the author covers some of the post-war self-serving disputes between the survivors and the role played by various individuals. One character that readers will find hard to like is William A. Fuller, the southern conductor who played a key role in apprehending the raiders. Although the author appears to paint Fuller as a fanatic, almost sadistic character at times, he then reverses himself and tries to certify that Fuller was indeed a decent man who did what he thought was right. As for myself, the author's description of Fuller's statement that "Andrews did not show much strength of character" on the scaffold, then keeping the rope that hanged PVT Samuel Slavens as a "prized possession," then expressing his condolences to Slavens' widow after the war seemed to certify him as a first-class jerk. Sometimes jerks can play a role in historical events - perhaps another lesson of this book - but it does not ennoble them.

Ultimately, the author succeeds in covering this story from start to finish and provides great drama and insight in parts. This author's style can be a bit tedious at times, with a tendency to over-describe every building along the railway. I also wish that the author had put more effort into explaining Andrews himself, who enters and exits the book as an enigma. In any event, Stealing the General provides an example of historical writing that breaks away from the drudgery of so much other contemporary Civil War historiography.

A Solid Account of a Famous Civil War Incident
In "Stealing the General" Russell Bonds presents a minutely detailed account of an 1862 raid that sent a party of Union soldiers (and two civilians) behind Confederate lines to steal a locomotive and then burn railroad bridges between Atlanta and Chattanooga to isolate the latter city in advance of a proposed Federal movement. The Union raiding party captured the locomotive (the "General" of the title) but because of close pursuit they were unable to carry out the main part of their mission, the destruction of the bridges. The entire raiding party was subsequently captured and about a third of them were executed as spies (the survivors and their dead military comrades were awarded Medals of Honor). Bonds delves into the backgrounds of the raiders (and their foes), creating three-dimensional portraits of real men, with flaws as well as commendable virtues.

The incident resulted in many postwar articles and books, including several by participants, and eventually provided seeds for not only the 1956 film, "The Great Locomotive Chase," but also an earlier Buster Keaton classic, "The General." But for the past half century, the raid has been largely neglected as a subject for serious study; Bonds's book corrects this lack.

Although not a story of a great battle or a famous military leader, this is nonetheless a book that provides compelling, vivid reading about heroes who may have been less than perfect, and all the more real because of that.

Excellent coverage of a strange story
Detailed coverage of one of the Civil War's lesser known and stranger episodes. Includes informed speculation on why the endeavour was undertaken, thorough recital of the events of the raid itself, and extensive coverage of the raiders in the following days, as they were moved between prisons and, eventually, returned to the North. This latter portion is an aspect of the story which has not previously been told, and is fully as interesting as the events of the raid itself.

In no part of this book did I find myself wanting further detail, or wondering what events had been omitted or compressed for brevity. It is rare to find a book which is so complete in it's story.