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January 4, 2018
Movie Night: The Great Locomotive Chase is a 1956
Walt Disney Productions CinemaScope adventure film based on the real Great
Locomotive Chase that occurred in 1862 during the American Civil War. 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. On March 25, 1863, Cpl. William Pettenger along with 7 other soldiers,
are summoned to the US War Department and are brought before War Secretary Edwin
Stanton to receive the first Medals of Honor. Pittenger, narrating, tells the
story of the mission they participated in through a flashback.