Daring and Suffering by William Pittenger

Our host said he had seen some one dodging around the back of his plantation, by the edge of the woods, just as it was getting dark, and in the morning he would take his bloodhounds, and go to hunt him up, and if it proved to be a negro, he would get the reward.

“Where we stayed that night, I first heard from the lips of a slave-owner himself of hunting negroes with bloodhounds. He starts by describing their journey to Georgia as they were portraying citizens of Kentucky trying to join the confederate army.

The raid led to the creation of the Medal of Honor, and the Andrews Raiders were its first recipients. Pittenger was captured and spent eleven months as a prisoner of the confederates. The raid failed after ninety miles primarily due to conductor William Fuller, who chased after them and used another locomotive, the Texas, to catch them. Pittenger was one of the twenty-two Federal soldiers who made their way through the lines to Marietta, Georgia and took the train. The Great Locomotive Chase inspired one movie with Buster Keaton as William Fuller, the confederate conductor who chases after the stolen train, The General, and a Disney movie with Fess Parker as leader of the raid James Andrews, The Great Locomotive Chase. You can download and read it for free here or here. This is a book by William Pittenger which recounts his adventures as a member of the Andrews Raiding Party in the “Great Locomotive Chase” of April, 1862, along with his time as a prisoner of the confederates after his capture.

Daring and Suffering by William Pittenger