The General (locomotive)

Built in 1855 in Paterson, New Jersey, the General provided frieght and passenger service between Atlanta, Georgia and Chattanooga, Tennessee before the Civil War. (Antebellum trains were known by names, not numbers.) During the Civil War The General was stolen by northern spies at Big Shanty (now Kennesaw), Georgia and abandoned at Ringgold, Georgia. Later it narrowly escaped destruction when General John Bell Hood ordered the ordinance depot destroyed as he left Atlanta on September 1, 1864.