The marker is located just off of the current railroad tracks through town. It makes for a proper setting considering the events. The marker states:

Commemorating two notable

Civil War Incidents

The Massacre

On this ground, on September 27, 1864, guerilla forces operating against the U.S. Government captured a passenger train of the North Missouri Railroad (now Wabash Railroad) as part of a program to destroy the railroad, and shot down 22 Federal soldiers. The Depot, all coaches of the train, and a following freight train were set ablaze and destroyed.

The Battle

Near here, on that same afternoon, a pursuing portion of the 39th Missouri Infantry Volunteers engaged the greatly superior, guerilla forces. In a wild and merciless battle the Union troops were almost totally annihilated. In point of fatalities to the vanquished according to Centralia & Boone County historians, this battle was without parallel in the annals of the Civil War.

Seventy-nine of the soldiers were buried on the railroad right-of-way east of Centralia until 1873, when the War Department removed the bodies to the National Cemetery at Jefferson City, Missouri.

This Marker, presented on June 12, 1957, during the Centralia Centennial, by Wabash Railroad Company, Arthur K. Atkinson, President.

The related waymark is the The Battle of Centralia or WM623B, which gives greater detail on the battle.

Another website by the Mid-Missouri Civil War Round Table has a very interesting website relating to the Centralia Massacre and the afternoon battle. There are excellent diagrams of the locations.