The General (locomotive)
The General | |
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4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) in 1886 | |
Driver dia. | 60 in (1,524 mm) |
Adhesive weight | 32,000 lb (15,000 kilograms; 15 tonnes) |
Loco weight | 50,300 lb (22,800 kilograms; 22.8 tonnes) |
Boiler pressure | 140 lbf/in2 (965 kPa) |
Cylinders | Two, outside |
Cylinder size | 15 in (381 mm) |
Career | |
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Operators | Western and Atlantic Railroad, Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway, Louisville and Nashville Railroad |
Numbers | 39, renumbered 3 in 1880 |
Official name | General |
First run | January 1856 |
Retired | 1891 |
The General | |
Kennesaw, GA | |
Coordinates | 34°1′24.7″N 84°36′51.96″W / 34.023528°N 84.6144333°W |
Built | 1855 |
Architect | Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor |
NRHP reference No. | 73000617 [1] |
Added to NRHP | June 19, 1973 |
Current owner | Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History |
Disposition | static display |
Western & Atlantic Railroad #3 General is a
Before the Civil War
Built in 1855 by
Civil War
During the Civil War on April 12, 1862, The General was commandeered by Northerners led by James J. Andrews at Big Shanty (now Kennesaw, Georgia), and abandoned north of Ringgold, after being pursued by William Allen Fuller and the Texas. Low on water and wood, the General eventually lost steam pressure and speed, and slowed to a halt two miles north of Ringgold, where Andrews and his raiders abandoned the locomotive and tried to flee.
In 1864, the Battle of Atlanta had forced the withdrawal of General John Bell Hood's forces from the city. Hood ordered the ordnance depot destroyed as he left Atlanta on September 1, 1864. To this end, the General was severely damaged by being run into boxcars of ammunition and the locomotive Missouri. This was done deliberately so as to render the engine unusable for the approaching Union forces.
Post-war service
It had been speculated by some that, after the General had been damaged, the invading Union army restored the engine and operated it. However, many historians believe that the engine was left untouched for the remainder of the war. The Union army had based its repair shops in Nashville, and there is no evidence to suggest the engine was moved there. The United States Military Railroad Service had many new or like-new engines, so they had no need to restore captured ones such as the General. The USMRR had often left the damaged equipment of a captured railroad undisturbed, and its records, having listed the General as "captured and returned," further suggest such was the case of the General.
After the war ended, the General was repaired and continued service on the Western and Atlantic. In the 1870s, the General was completely rebuilt, it had received a new pilot, boiler, and other components. Most notably, its three dome configuration was reduced to two domes, and its Radley-Hunter style balloon stack was replaced with a diamond stack, as the engine had been converted to burn coal. Indeed, the rebuilt engine had little resemblance to its original form.
Before the Civil War, most railways in the south, including the W&A, did not give their engines numbers. Rather, they were simply named, such as the General. When the railroad began numbering engines after the war, the General was the 39th engine to be acquired by the road, and was numbered accordingly. Locomotives came and went as years progressed, and by 1880, a renumbering was necessary. At this time, the General was given the number "3," being the third oldest engine that the railroad had at the time. The engine continues to carry this number today.[4]
In the mid-1880s, the
The locomotive was originally built to the southern states standard rail gauge of
Retirement and exhibition
The General was retired from service in 1891 and stored on a siding in Vinings, GA where it awaited its final fate. Early the next year, E. Warren Clark, a professional photographer, discovered the engine in Vinings, and approached John W. Thomas, president of the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway (which had won the lease on the Western and Atlantic Railroad of the State of Georgia in 1890), with the proposal of restoring the General for exhibition at the upcoming World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Thomas approved of the idea, and the General was soon taken to the NC&StL Ry Shops at West Nashville to be restored. At this time, the engine was given a Radley-Hunter style balloon stack similar to the engine's original, and was reverted to a wood burner. The engine had been restored by 1892, a year before the exposition. During this time, the engine traveled to Chattanooga to attend a reunion of the Army of the Cumberland veterans. This trip made apparent the difficulties associated with wood burning, so the engine was returned to a coal burner by the end of the year. The engine was given a unique new stack at this time, one that, while designed for coal burning, was styled like the original so as to give the appearance of a wood burner.
In 1901, the General was placed on display in the
In 1957, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad had acquired the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis, including its lease of the Western and Atlantic, and began planning to restore the General to operation for the American Civil War Centennial. In 1959, the General was removed from the Chattanooga Union Depot and taken to the railroad's South Louisville Shops to be restored. As part of the restoration, the General was given modern air brakes, a modern coupler (only on the tender, the older style coupler on the engine's front pilot remained), and was converted to burn oil. Throughout the 1960s, the engine pulled Louisville and Nashville Combine Car Number 665 as it traveled to various places across the eastern US, including the 1964 New York World's Fair under its own power.
Battle for custody
In the mid-1960s, the state of Georgia began to express interest in reclaiming the engine. Indeed, many proposals about the General had arisen since the 1930s, while it was still on display at Chattanooga, including plans to have the General be displayed in
The state of Georgia's interest in the General soon raised tensions with the city of Chattanooga, where the General was displayed. In 1967, the city of Kennesaw, where the engine had been stolen in 1862, requested to have the engine attend a fundraiser held by the Big Shanty Historical Society.[5] The General was on its way there, when it was stopped by a group led by Chattanooga's mayor, Ralph H. Kelley. He believed the engine belonged to the city, and a lawsuit had been filed against the L&N concerning custody of the engine.
On January 4, 1969, Judge Frank W. Wilson,
Present day
After the L&N won the legal dispute concerning the engine's custody in 1970, they brought the engine to Atlanta via the former Atlanta, Knoxville and Northern Railway line from Knoxville through Etowah, to Marietta, bypassing Chattanooga. In February 1972, a ceremony was held in Atlanta where L&N president Kendall formally presented the General to then state governor (and later President of the United States) Jimmy Carter. Afterwards, the engine was moved to Kennesaw where a museum site was prepared. On April 12, 1972, the Big Shanty Museum (later known as the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History) opened, and the General has remained on display there since.
See also
- The General, 1926 film by Buster Keaton
- Walt Disney Productions
References
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 15, 2006.
- ^ Moshein, Peter & Rothfus, Robert R. (1992). "Rogers locomotives: A brief history and construction list". Railroad History (167): 13–147.
- ISBN 978-1-59416-033-2.
- ISBN 9781575100609.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-05-22. Retrieved 2015-05-20.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "City of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Felix Miller Jr., Donald W. Hayden, E. R. Pickett, and Fred Rothberger Jr., Plaintiffs-appellants, v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co., Defendant-appellee, 427 F.2d 1154 (6th Cir. 1970),"Justia Law, n.p., n.d. Web, <http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/427/1154/267978/>.
- ^ “Steam News Photos.” Trains Magazine, May 1970, p. 16.