the Great Locomotive Chase involved the Texas and its more famous cousin, the General, and Disney made the story into a 1956 film.
The raiders achieved little success, and eight of the nearly two dozen captured participants, disguised as civilians, were later hanged in Atlanta as spies.
https://www.mdjonline.com/neighbor_newspapers/northside_sandy_springs/opinion/the-texas-locomotive-carries-history-of-atlanta-into-present-day/article_aa06710c-5703-11e9-928f-8b3e7561cf69.html
During the Civil War, a team of Union spies under the leadership of James Andrews planned to steal a locomotive in Atlanta and take it to Chattanooga, destroying bridges along the way. This would prevent Atlanta from sending reinforcements to Chattanooga while the Union army overtook it.
Andrews’ Raiders, as they are known, slipped into Georgia and on April 12, 1862, boarded the General as passengers. It was en route to Chattanooga. When it stopped in Kennesaw for breakfast, the passengers disembarked and the raiders sprang into action.
Upon seeing his engine and three railroad cars pulling away, Capt. William Fuller gave chase on foot. He was accompanied by two crew members. By foot and occasionally handcar, they pursued the General.
Over the course of the day, Fuller commandeered several engines as he came upon them, only to be thwarted by Andrews’ men destroying the tracks. They also cut the telegraph wires. Their efforts to burn the bridges failed, though. Because of a wet spring, the bridges wouldn’t burn, only smolder.
Finally, Andrews commandeered the Texas near Adairsville, but it was headed in the opposite direction. Driving in reverse, he caught up to the General, which ran out of fuel in Ringgold near the Tennessee line. Short on time and fuel, and with Fuller constantly gaining on them, the raiders had stopped cutting the telegraph lines and tearing up tracks. Word had been sent ahead. Armed men were waiting as Andrews’ Raiders fled the engine in every direction. They were caught and jailed.
Moving the Texas out of its home of nearly 90 years was quite a feat.
The behemoth was inched more than 30 feet through the old auditorium. A deep trench was dug to protect structural supports, and a wall was opened. Movable sections of track were used in the process, said Howard Pousner, manager of media relations for the Atlanta History Center.
The locomotive, long in the shadow of the General -- the engine it chased -- won't be relegated to the basement anymore. Freed of corrosion and rust and sporting a new paint job, the illuminated Texas will be visible from the road. It will be a far cry from the early 1900s, when it was rescued from a Western & Atlantic Railroad yard before it was sent to scrap.
"We want to show it as the hard-working engine that it was, not just as one of the engines in the Great Locomotive Chase," Gordon Jones, the history center's senior military historian, said in a statement.
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