Andrews Raid is Serialized

ANDREWS RAID IS SERIALIZED

In 1886 and 1887 the American Press Association published a very complete serialized story of the Andrews Raid. Fred J. Cook was manager of their Atlanta office and, as such, gave his personal attention to local connections with the event. Cook was urged by his headquarters to make a concerted effort to locate the remains of James J. Andrews as a grand sequel to their publication. Cook made inquiry and located John H. Mashburne who had lived all those years near the spot where Andrews was executed and who assured Cook he could locate the grave. Final arrangements were made and on April 11, 1887, Cook, with Mashburne as guide, Major E.J. Kirke of the United States Army stationed in Atlanta, Dr. C.L. Wilson, President of the National Surgical Institute of Atlanta, and a black laborer armed with pick and shovel, started out to find the remains. Mashburne led them to the present day intersection of 3rd and Juniper streets, NE. About 20 steps southeast of the intersection, they stopped near a large rock beneath a pine tree where a tangled mass of blackberry bushes grew in a depression in the ground. Here under the direction of Mashburne, the laborers began to dig, and at the depth of about three feet they discovered a portion of a human skeleton. As the bones were exhumed and laid aside, it soon became apparent they were of a large man, and later declared to be the remains of James J. Andrews.

Major Kirke initiated action to have the remains transferred to Chattanooga and there interred in the National Cemetery. This was done, for the records of the Chattanooga National Cemetery indicate that the remains of James J. Andrews were shipped from Atlanta, Georgia on October 7, 1887, via the Western & Atlantic Railroad. The exact date of internment is not known, but it is thought to be the following day, October 8. Andrews was buried in the semicircle formed by the graves of the seven who had been executed. The arrangements for his reburial were handled by Post No. 45 of the GAR in Chattanooga.