WASHINGTON (NEWSnet/AP) — President Joe Biden will award the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry on Wednesday to two Union soldiers who stole a locomotive in Confederate territory during the Civil War and drove it north as they destroyed railroad tracks and telegraph lines.

U.S. Army Pvts. Philip G. Shadrach and George D. Wilson were captured by Confederates and executed by hanging.

Biden is recognizing their courage 162 years later with the country's highest military decoration, presenting it to two individuals who were not included in previous efforts honoring their colleagues.

The Civil War killed more than 600,000 Union and Confederate service members between 1861 and 1865; the impact of the war and immediate aftermath continues to shape U.S. politics.

Shadrach and Wilson will be recognized for participating in what became known as the Great Locomotive Chase.

A Kentucky-born civilian spy and scout named James J. Andrews put together a group of volunteers, including Shadrach and Wilson, to degrade the railway and telegraph lines used by Confederates in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

On April 12, 1862, 22 of the men in what was later called Andrews' Raiders met up in Marietta, Georgia, and hijacked a train named The General. The group tore up tracks and sliced through telegraph wires while taking the train north.

Confederate troops chased them, initially on foot and later by train. The Confederate troops eventually caught the group. Andrews and seven others were executed, while the others either escaped or remained prisoners of war.

The first Medal of Honor ever bestowed went to Pvt. Jacob Parrott, who participated in the locomotive hijacking and was beaten while imprisoned by the Confederacy.

The government later recognized 18 other participants who took part in the raid with the honor, but Shadrach and Wilson were excluded. They were later authorized to receive the medal as part of the fiscal 2008 National Defense Authorization Act.

Shadrach, born on Sept. 15, 1840, in Pennsylvania, was 21 years old when he volunteered for the mission. He was orphaned at a young age and left home in 1861 to enlist in an Ohio infantry regiment after the start of the Civil War.

Wilson was born in 1830 in Belmont County, Ohio. He worked as a journeyman shoemaker before the war and enlisted in an Ohio-based volunteer infantry in 1861.

The Walt Disney Corp. made a 1956 movie about the hijacking titled “The Great Locomotive Chase,” starring Fess Parker and Jeffrey Hunter. The 1926 silent film “The General,” starring Buster Keaton, was also based on the historic event.

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