ary an attempt, was so incongruous
a band assembled. I knew one of them--Sergeant-Major Marion A.
Ross, of the 2d Ohio. He had no previous training, and no special
skill for such an expedition. He was a farmer boy (Champaign Co.,
Ohio) of more than ordinary retiring modesty, with no element of
reckless daring in his nature. He had almost white silky flaxen
hair, and at Antioch College, where I first met him, he rarely
associated with his schoolmates in play or amusement. He was called
a ladies' man; and this because he did not care for the active
pursuits usually enjoyed by young men.

It is said that when Ross ascertained the number of trains, regular
and irregular, with which the exigencies of war had covered the
railroad, and considered also the distance to be passed over, he
tried at the last moment to dissuade Andrews from undertaking the
execution of the enterprise. In this he failed, but Andrews gave
any of the party who regarded the design too hazardous the right
to withdraw.( 2) Not one, however, availed himself of this liberty.
Ross saw that the scheme must fail, but was too manly to abandon
his comrades.

Saturday morning before daylight the party was seated in one
passenger car, moving north. In this and other coaches there were
several hundred passengers.( 3) At sunrise, when eight miles from
Marietta, the train stopped, and the trainmen shouted: "_Big Shanty
--twenty minutes for breakfast_." At this, conductor, engineer,
fireman, and train-hands, with most of the passengers, left the
train. Thus the desired opportunity of Andrews and his party was
presented. They did not hesitate. Three cars back from the tender,
including only box-cars, the coupling-pin was drawn, and the
passenger cars cut off. Andrews mounted the engine, with Brown
and Knight as engineers and Wilson as fireman. Others took places
as brakemen, or as helpers and guards, and, to the amazement of
the bystanders, the locomotive moved rapidly north. The conductor,
engineer, and train-men were dazed. The capture was accomplished,
but how were the trains and the stations to be passed on the long
journey to Chattanooga; and how was that place to be passed, and
still a run of a hundred miles made over the Memphis and Charleston
Railroad before they were within the Union lines at Huntsville?
The train proceeded only a short distance when it was stopped and
the telegraph wires cut, then it moved on again, stopping now and
then