The Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History is a museum in Kennesaw, Georgia, that contains a collection of artifacts and relics from the American Civil War, as well as from railroads of the state of Georgia and surrounding regions. The centerpiece is the General, a steam locomotive used in the Great Locomotive Chase in April 1862.
The archives house a significant collection of company records, engineering drawings, blueprints, glass plate negatives, photographs and correspondence from various American businesses representing the railroad industry in the South after the Civil War. The archives also contain a growing collection of Civil War letters, diaries, and official records.
History and evolution
The museum (then known as the Big Shanty Museum), in a barn that once housed a cotton gin, initially opened on April 12, 1972, appropriately on the very date which the chase occurred one hundred and ten years prior, with the General as the centerpiece. Later, the theme expanded to include Civil War pieces as well.
Western and Atlantic Railroad No. 3: The General, on display in Kennesaw, Georgia.
In the mid- to late 1990, the property of the former Glover Machine Works was to be demolished. The buildings on this site, having sat vacant for nearly 50 years, still contained records, locomotive parts, machinery for locomotive construction, and at least one complete locomotive, which had only seen a few months of active service before being repossessed. Descendants of the Glover family, who had retained ownership of the firm and its collection, in turn donated the collection to the museum in 2001.
With the acquisition of the rather large collection of artifacts, the museum closed in late 2001 and began a massive expansion to house them. During the construction, a large box of plywood boards was built overtop of the General to protect it. The augmented museum reopened in March 2003 as the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History. A further expansion was finished in 2007 to house the recently acquired French Merci Boxcar.
Bartow County is located in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 108,901, up from 100,157 in 2010. The county seat is Cartersville.
The Atlanta Cyclorama and Civil War Museum was a Civil War museum located in Atlanta, Georgia. Its most noted attraction was the Atlanta Cyclorama, a cylindrical panoramic painting of the Battle of Atlanta. As of December 2021, the Cyclorama is located at the Atlanta History Center, while the building is now Zoo Atlanta's Savanna Hall.
The Western & Atlantic Railroad of the State of Georgia (W&A) is a railroad owned by the State of Georgia and currently leased by CSX, which CSX operates in the Southeastern United States from Atlanta, Georgia, to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
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 Louisville and Nashville Railroad, commonly called the L&N, was a Class I railroad that operated freight and passenger services in the southeast United States.
The B&O Railroad Museum is a museum and historic railway station exhibiting historic railroad equipment in Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) company originally opened the museum on July 4, 1953, with the name of the Baltimore & Ohio Transportation Museum. It has been called one of the most significant collections of railroad treasures in the world and has the largest collection of 19th-century locomotives in the U.S. The museum is located in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's old Mount Clare Station and adjacent roundhouse, and retains 40 acres of the B&O's sprawling Mount Clare Shops site, which is where, in 1829, the B&O began America's first railroad and is the oldest railroad manufacturing complex in the United States.
Atlanta History Center is a history museum and research center located in the Buckhead district of Atlanta, Georgia. The Museum was founded in 1926 and currently consists of nine permanent, and several temporary, exhibitions. Atlanta History Center's campus is 33-acres and features historic gardens and houses located on the grounds, including Swan House, Smith Farm, and Wood Family Cabin. Atlanta History Center's Midtown Campus includes the Margaret Mitchell House & Museum. The History Center's research arm, Kenan Research Center, is open by appointment, and provides access to the archival collections. Atlanta History Center holds one of the largest collections of Civil War artifacts in the United States.
Western & Atlantic Railroad #3 General is a 4-4-0 "American" type steam locomotive built in 1855 by the Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor in Paterson, New Jersey for the Western & Atlantic Railroad, best known as the engine stolen by Union spies in the Great Locomotive Chase, an attempt to cripple the Confederate rail network during the American Civil War. Today, the locomotive is preserved at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw, Georgia, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Central of Georgia Railway started as the Central Rail Road and Canal Company in 1833. As a way to better attract investment capital, the railroad changed its name to Central Rail Road and Banking Company of Georgia. This railroad was constructed to join the Macon and Western Railroad at Macon, Georgia, in the United States, and run to Savannah. This created a rail link from Chattanooga, on the Tennessee River, to seaports on the Atlantic Ocean. It took from 1837 to 1843 to build the railroad from Savannah to the eastern bank of the Ocmulgee River at Macon; a bridge into the city was not built until 1851.
The Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, was the last home for Arizona's Territorial government, until Arizona became a state in 1912. Initially, all three branches of the new state government occupied the four floors of the statehouse. As the state expanded the branches relocated to adjacent buildings and additions. The 1901 portion of the Capitol is now maintained as the Arizona Capitol Museum with a focus on the history and culture of Arizona. The Arizona State Library, which occupied most of the 1938 addition until July 2017, re-opened in late 2018 as a part of the Arizona Capitol Museum.
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.
The New Hope Valley Railway is a heritage railroad in Bonsal, North Carolina operated by the North Carolina Railway Museum, Inc., an all-volunteer, nonprofit, and tax exempt educational and historical organization.
The Evansville Museum of Arts, History & Science is a general-interest museum located on the Ohio riverfront in downtown Evansville, Indiana, United States. Founded in 1904, it is one of Southern Indiana's most established and significant cultural institutions, with comprehensive collections in art, history, anthropology and science. It has a permanent collection of over 30,000 objects including fine arts, decorative arts, historic documents and photographs, and anthropologic and natural history artifacts. Also on the museum's campus is the Evansville Museum Transportation Center, featuring Southern Indiana transportation artifacts from the late 19th through the mid-20th centuries. The museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
William Allen Fuller was a conductor on the Western & Atlantic Railroad during the American Civil War era. He was most noted for his role in the 1862 Great Locomotive Chase, a daring sabotage mission and raid conducted by soldiers of the Union Army in northern Georgia. Fuller's determined pursuit prevented the Union agents from driving a captured train north to Tennessee and the Union lines.
The Virginia Museum of Transportation (VMT) is a museum in Downtown Roanoke, Virginia, that is devoted to the topic of transportation.
Western & Atlantic Railroad #49 "Texas" is a 4-4-0 "American" type steam locomotive built in 1856 for the Western & Atlantic Railroad by Danforth, Cooke & Co., best known as the principal pursuit engine in the Great Locomotive Chase, chasing the General after the latter was stolen by Union saboteurs in an attempt to ruin the Confederate rail system during the American Civil War. The locomotive is preserved at the Atlanta History Center.
The Gold Coast Railroad Museum is a railroad museum located in Miami, Florida, adjacent to Zoo Miami.
The Southeastern Railway Museum is a railroad museum located in Duluth, Georgia, in suburban Atlanta.
Wilson Wright Brown was a soldier and recipient of the Medal of Honor for his role in the Great Locomotive Chase during the American Civil War.
Yonah was a type 4-4-0 steam locomotive that participated in the Great Locomotive Chase of the American Civil War.
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