Russell S. Bonds

This is a most compelling book, history that moves at the pace of a novel.

Since I was a kid and saw a Walt Disney production of "The Great Locomotive Chase" (starring Fess Parker, no less!), I have had an interest in the Civil War story of the Andrews raid, in which a group of Union soldiers went behind enemy lines to steal a train for the purpose of disrupting Confederate railroad traffic. What the raiders had counted on was a conductor on the train they stole, so offended by their act that he took off in pursuit of them, first on foot(!), then by securing another train. What excitement! What drama! Even better than most fiction!

As a child I also had a book about Medal of Honor winners, the "Great Locomotive Chase" was covering in its first chapter. (The raiders were the first recipients of the Medal of Honor.) I couldn't get enough of the story.

What I didn't know, however, is that the excitement and drama didn't end with the chase itself. The raiders were caught and imprisoned and what followed was a story of endurance during their imprisonment, as well as an incredible escape by some of them that required them to negotiate many hundreds of miles through enemy territory in order to get back to Union lines.

"Stealing the General" has to be by far the DEFINITIVE account of the Andrews Raid. It is extremely well-written, an absorbing true-story page-turner.

I'm surprised the book hasn't gotten much visibility, but that's likely because the author is without formal credentials as a historian (he's a lawyer on staff with the Coca-Cola Company), and the book comes from an obscure publishing house (Westholme Publishers of Yardley, PA). It has been a selection of the Book of the Month Club, the History Book Club, and the Military Book Club, so some have recognized its excellence. It really deserves more readers.… (meer)

The author is a Corporate Lawyer with Coca-Cola©…but he can write and tells a great story!
Bonds give full credit to a Colonel James Bogle of Atlanta who not only gave the author much guidance but whose wonderful collection of photographs – of all the trains and most of the Train Stealers – so add to this work. The story of the plot, the chase, its unhappy failure and the miserable outcome for the Union participants is tempered with the apparent admiration of all for its outrageous courage. The then current headlines even in the Southern press indicated admiration for its daring, if not its intent and showed why this is such a fascinating story.

There is a well-researched chapter on the history of the Medal of Honor, from its inception by the first award to one of the bravest surviving “Raider” to its rapid debasement - one was awarded merely because a lieutenant colonel wrote requesting that he be allowed one as a souvenir and then all 864 members of a Maine regiment were given the medal as an incentive to reenlist – and only 309 did so!

In the closing chapters Russell makes a tentative claim that the General is “probably the world’s most famous train”. By the end of the book he firms up on his claim (p.437) on the “World’s most famous locomotive”. Unless his “world” is the same as the USA World Series (i.e. the contiguous 48) I think not. The Orient Express is assuredly that train, and if only engines, then surely Stephenson’s Rocket perhaps, or the Flying Scotsman or even the beautiful Southern Pacific engines but surely a major motive for his writing his marvelous book is to spread wider the knowledge of this particular and wonderful train, the stolen General.… (meer)