Daring and Suffering: A History of the Great Railroad Adventure

It reads like a thriller but actually happened. In April 1862, a band of Union volunteers slipped into Georgia with a seemingly impossible mission: cripple the Western and Atlantic Railroad, the Confederate supply line feeding Atlanta. Led by a civilian spy named James J. Andrews, they seized the locomotive The General in the town of Big Shanty and raced north toward Chattanooga, tearing up track and burning bridges behind them. What followed was a furious pursuit across 87 miles of mountainous terrain, Confederate soldiers chasing on foot while another locomotive, The Texas, thundered after them. The raid failed. Andrews and several of his men were captured, tried as spies, and hanged. But the story does not end there. Some raiders escaped through impossible terrain; others were exchanged in prisoner swaps. Eight of them became the first recipients of the Medal of Honor in American history. Pittenger was there. He survived. And his account, written just a year after the events, pulses with the raw adrenaline of men who dared to steal a train right out from under an army. This is adventure nonfiction at its most visceral, a story of daring and consequence that reads like the best kind of fiction.