(April, 1862—The
Civil War) Poetic Prose
James J. Andrews, finessed his way through
tight places, avoiding clashes with the south (a
Union Spy) where a flinch of an
eyelash meant death—!
His quest had now been to take the Engine General
and its three boxcars at the depot called – ‘Big Shanty’ at
Marietta, Georgia—race onto Bridgeport,
Alabama, with thirty armed soldiers:
—thus, the race began, heading westward; Conductor William A. Fuller in
pursuit!
The Yankees only eleven minutes ahead! Heaving and pulling iron rails loose until
they snapped—to slow old Yonah down, Fuller still behind…
One mistake Andrews had made along the way, was
not to destroy the old engine Yonah, thinking, it had its day… which would seal
his fate and write his epitaph
(for that was the engine Fuller used to start
his race…)!
Consequently, capturing Andrews along the way
and most of his squad; hanging Andrews eleven days before his wedding, leaving
his bones in Dixie!
Note: Those
who have not been in war, will never understand the simplest of friction, it
can produce with the simplest of things, distortion in the mind
(miscalculations); you see the mind doesn’t always function the exact way you’d
expect it to. Especially when making moment to moment decisions as in the: “…Race of the Old Yonah” (12/21/2011)
#3360 (12-20-2011)
Men in War, PART II of III
