Russell Bonds: Stealing the General: The Great Locomotive Chase & The First Medal of Honor

We're inviting audiences to hold tight for a high-speed chase involving the first recipient of America's highest award for military valor - and one of the funniest movies ever made.

The first Medal of Honor was awarded to Private Jacob Parrott for a daring Civil War raid known as the Great Locomotive Chase. Led by Union agent James J. Andrews, the team slipped behind enemy lines and stole a locomotive named the "General". Their mission was to wreak havoc: tear up tracks, burn bridges, and cut telegraph wires, thereby ruining Confederate supply lines from Tennessee to Virginia. But the train's conductor led a dogged pursuit, and after a run of bad luck, Andrews' team was captured. Eight were executed, and eight others escaped; most of the raiders went on to receive the Medal of Honor from President Lincoln. Russell S. Bonds' Stealing the General is a comprehensive account of the raid, from plan to aftermath, and its place in Civil War lore.

In 1927, silent film comic Buster Keaton brought their story to the screen from the perspective of Johnny Gray, a train engineer who's heartsick over the disapproval of his sweetheart Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack) and determined not to lose the other great love of his life: that locomotive. But The General is more than just a funny picture - consistently ranked among the greatest films of any era, its historical authenticity and period details are on a par with the best of D.W. Griffith or Cecil B. DeMille. Viewed in light of the actual events, Keaton's decisions in crafting the story offer fascinating insights into the way he thought about comedy - and the changing way the Civil War was remembered in America, six decades after it ended.

Russell S. Bonds received a law degree magna cum laude from the University of Georgia, where he was the Executive Articles Editor of the Georgia Law Review. He has published several articles on Civil War topics, including "Pawn Takes Bishop: The Death of Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk" and "Lieutenant Tecumseh: Sherman's First March Through Georgia, 1844."

Ed Tracy is the Executive Producer of Programs at the Pritzker Military Library and host of the Library's Medal of Honor series. His first theatrical venture, a musical on the life of Buster Keaton, had a professional reading in 2003 at the Union League Club in Chicago.