. The great locomotive chase; a history of the Andrews railroad raid into Georgia in 1862 . have beenat our mercy, as well as all the bridges above. He is right, but the diffi-culties in doing this were greater than he thinks. To pull or push the caroff by means of the engine, involved some risk of getting the engine itselfoff, which would have been fatal. We had no good means of mcving it An Appalling Struggle. 135 in any other way, and the, element of time was all important. The pur-suers were right behind, and while they could not have fired on us ateffective range, they could very quickly


. The great locomotive chase; a history of the Andrews railroad raid into Georgia in 1862 . have beenat our mercy, as well as all the bridges above. He is right, but the diffi-culties in doing this were greater than he thinks. To pull or push the caroff by means of the engine, involved some risk of getting the engine itselfoff, which would have been fatal. We had no good means of mcving it An Appalling Struggle. 135 in any other way, and the, element of time was all important. The pur-suers were right behind, and while they could not have fired on us ateffective range, they could very quickly have alarmed the town ahead ofus, and then the track could have been obstructed to prevent our is easier to imagine what might have been done, than actually to doit, even if the circumstances were repeated ! There was no opportunity to turn and fight at this point. The townof Resaca was within a few hundred yards of the bridge, and any noisewould bring help from that quarter. Besides our pursuers were armedwith guns, and our only chance of getting at close quarters was by an. Oostenaila Bridge. ambuscade. Had the day been dry, we could have flung faggots fromthe engine upon the roof, but now a fire even on the inside of the large framebridge, would require careful nursing. With a station only a few hundredfeet ahead, where the track might be so easily obstructed, and with theguns of the pursuers behind, we could not give time for this; so we slowlyand reluctantly passed over the bridge, after dropping the car, and onthrough the village of Resaca. The pursuers took up this car asthey had done the other, and pushed them both through the bridge, andleft them on the Resaca side track. It may be well to notice here how our ignorance of the enemy and hisignorance of us both inured to his advantage. There had been alreadymany intimations among us that it would be well to turn and fight rather 136 Daring and Suffering. than to be chased any further. Had the real weakness of


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Keywords: ., bookauthorpittenge, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1910