Hi,
Over on Friends of the Flange, they have a short article on seven historic locomotives that should have been preserved but were not.
It is (I believe) well known that the General and the Texas were preserved and are in the Metro Atlanta Area.
FoF says about the lost Yonah having lasted until the 1900s.
I was wondering about the Western & Atlantic William R Smith. What happened to her? most searches on the web yield information on the raid but not what happened to the locos Yonah and William R Smith.
Can someone point me in the right direction?
Doug vV

The gents on the Yahoo! Groups list called Civil War RR's include some masters of W&A knowledge. I bet they would know.

Rob

For a concise and lively narrative of the Andrews Raid, I would highly recommend the acclaimed Russell S. Bonds book, "Stealing the General". Not only does the author give a highly detailed account of the raid and its participants but also casts a spotlight on all the engines involved in the raid including the more obscure players like the New York and the Catoosa (New York was the second locomotive blocking the mainline at Kingston and could have easily taken the place of the Smith had it not been for its positioning, and Catoosa was the third participant in the locomotive chase following behind Texas with a tender full of Confederate militia).

According to the book, Yonah lived out the rest of its Cooper Iron days in obscurity, eventually being retired and becoming a stationary boiler in the Atlanta W&A shops after the war until its inevitable scrapping (dates and timeline not provided). William R. Smith continued its stint on the Rome Railroad until it was leased to the Muscogee line running between Columbus and Macon. On April 16th, 1865, it was one of many locomotives captured by Union cavalry under the command of General James H. Wilson. They laid siege to the town and destroyed its naval yards, railroads, and ultimately, the William R. Smith.

Hi Doug,

An old but useful reference is Wilbur G. Kurtz's article on "The Andrews Raid" that appeared in R&LHS Bulletin 106 in 1962. According to Kurtz, the William R. Smith ended up as a stationary boiler in Calhoun, GA.

-Philip Marshall

Many years ago I read a reference (can't recall where) to the effect that the SMITH's boiler was "preserved" at the William R Smith manufacturing company in Birmingham, Alabama. Bob Yuill didn't find it, so presumably if it was ever there it isn't any longer.

dave

The boiler of the William R. Smith never went to Alabama. Every verifiable record that I have seen indicated that it remained in the Calhoun/Rome area. Yonah might have survived as the stationary boiler until sometime after 1900, but that is a remote possibility.