Andrews slowed up and uncoupled this blazing car on the bridge.  He stopped the engine just beyond, and he and his companions watched it hopefully.  The flames curled fiercely upward.  Dense smoke poured out at each end of the covered bridge.  Success seemed to be at length in their hands.  But the flames failed to do their work.  The roof of the bridge had been soaked by recent rains and resisted the blazing heat.  The roaring flames were uselessly licking the wet timbers when the pursuing engine came dashing up.  Fuller did not hesitate for a minute.  He had the heart of a soldier in the frame of a conductor.  Into the blinding smoke his engine was daringly driven, and in a minute it had caught the blazing car and was pushing it forward.  A minute more and it rolled into the open air, and the bridge was saved.  Its timbers had stubbornly refused to burn.

This ended the hopes of the fugitives.  They had exhausted their means of checking pursuit.  Their wood had been all consumed in this fruitless effort; their steam was rapidly going down; they had played their last card and lost the game.  The men sprang from the slowed-up engine.  The engineer reversed its valves and followed them.  Into the fields they rushed and ran in all directions, their only hope being now in their own powers of flight.  As they sped away the engines met, but without damage.  The steam in the stolen engine had so fallen that it was incapable of doing harm.  The other engine had been stopped, and the pursuers were springing agilely to the ground, and hurrying into the fields in hot chase.

Pursuit through field and forest was as keen and unrelenting as it had been over iron rails.  The Union lines were not far distant, yet not a man of the fugitives succeeded in reaching them.  The alarm spread with great rapidity; the whole surrounding country was up in pursuit; and before that day ended several of the daring raiders were prisoners in Confederate hands.  The others buried themselves in woods and swamps, lived on roots and berries, and ventured from their hiding-places only at night.  Yet they were hunted with unwearying persistence, and by the end of a week all but two had been captured.  These two had so successfully eluded pursuit that they fancied themselves out of danger, and became somewhat careless in consequence.  As a result, in a few days more they, too, fell into the hands of their foes.

A court-martial was convened.  The attempt had been so daring, and so nearly successful, the injury intended so great, and the whole affair so threatening, that the Confederate military authorities could not think of leniency.  Andrews and seven of his companions were condemned to death and hung.  Their graves may be seen to-day in the Soldiers’ Cemetery at Chattanooga, monuments to one of the most daring and reckless enterprises in the history of the Civil War.  The others were imprisoned.

AN ESCAPE FROM LIBBY PRISON.