The Great Locomotive Chase
The Great Locomotive Chase is a 1956 American adventure western film produced by Walt Disney Productions, based on the Great Locomotive Chase that occurred in 1862 during the American Civil War. Filmed in CinemaScope and in color, the film stars Fess Parker as James J. Andrews, the leader of a group of Union soldiers from various Ohio regiments who volunteered to go behind Confederate lines in civilian clothes, steal a Confederate train north of Atlanta, and drive it back to Union lines in Tennessee, tearing up railroad tracks and destroying bridges and telegraph lines along the way.
Theatrical release poster
Replica of the Lafayette, which portrayed the Yonah, during filming of The Great Locomotive Chase.
Image: Program from the Atlanta film premiere of The Great Locomotive Chase
Image: Program from the Marietta film premiere of The Great Locomotive Chase
The Great Locomotive Chase was a military raid that occurred April 12, 1862, in northern Georgia during the American Civil War. Volunteers from the Union Army, led by civilian scout James J. Andrews, commandeered a train, The General, and took it northward toward Chattanooga, Tennessee, doing as much damage as possible to the vital Western and Atlantic Railroad (W&A) line from Atlanta to Chattanooga as they went. They were pursued by Confederate forces at first on foot, and later on a succession of locomotives, including The Texas, for 87 miles (140 km).
The Andrews Raiders set a train car on fire to try to ignite a covered railway bridge and thwart Confederate pursuit.
James J. Andrews
This section of the Norfolk Southern Railway was originally part of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad
Illustration of nineteen men involved in the Great Locomotive Chase—seventeen Union soldiers and two railroad employees who chased them
