Daring and Suffering: A History of the Great Railroad Adventure

In April 1862, twenty-two Union men slipped into Confederate territory disguised as civilians, their mission so audacious it bordered on madness: seize a Confederate locomotive in Chattanooga, race it north with a car of burnable ties, and destroy the Western & Atlantic Railroad bridge at Marietta, severing the Confederacy's vital supply line to Atlanta. William Pittenger was one of them. Written just months after the raid failed spectacularly, this is his firsthand account of the war's most daring train robbery, a story that reads less like history than like a thriller someone lived through. The raiders initially succeeded, stealing the engine "The General" and racing toward Union lines, but Confederate forces gave chase, wood ran out, and the raiders scattered into the forests of north Georgia. Pittenger watched his comrades captured, hangled as spies, or shot. He himself endured months of brutal imprisonment before escaping. This is adventure writing at its rawest: no distance, no perspective, just the pounding heart of a man who knew he was living through something extraordinary and barely survived to tell it.