Centralia Battlefield Memorial for Union Soldiers - Centralia MO
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Word of the massacre quickly spread. A unit of the Thirty-ninth Missouri Infantry was in the vicinity, searching for the guerrilla bands and were dispatched to Centralia. The troops, under Major A. V. E. Johnston, were largely new recruits, riding farm horses and armed with Enfield muskets, a heavy muzzle-loading gun.
Upon arriving in Centralia, the frightened citizens told the Union troops that the band of Bloody Bill Anderson numbered less than 100 men and had moved to the southeast from Centralia. Ignoring warnings from some Centralians that there were more bushwhackers bivouacked south of town, the Federal Infantry followed the guerrilla trail, expecting to find a relatively small force as had been described to them. About three miles southeast of Centralia, they became entangled in a guerrilla ambush.
The inexperienced Federal troops, with their single shot rifles, followed the traditional warfare practice of advancing on foot, leaving their horses tended by a few soldiers. They marched into a three-sided formation of several hundred hidden guerrillas, each armed with several Colt revolvers, and within minutes, the Union troops were nearly annihilated. The few soldiers that were not killed on the first guerrilla volleys, ran back to their horses, but the guerrillas with their faster horses, overtook the fleeing troops and within the hour, over 120 soldiers were killed. Some nearly reached the sanctuary of Sturgeon some ten miles from the battleground, before the guerrillas completed the rout.
Three of the guerrillas were reported killed in the battle.
Among the guerrillas in action on that date were Frank James and his younger brother, Jesse. Historical accounts challenge whether Jesse James was a part of the Battle of Centralia, but later year lectures by Frank James, seem to confirm his participation. Some accounts credit Jesse James as the slayer of Major Johnston, commander of the ill-fated Union troops. Cole Younger was also listed as a member of the guerrilla force.
The Aftermath
Many of the bodies were recovered and sent back to their homes by Federal troops that came to the area shortly after the battle ceased, but 79 of the bodies were buried in a common grave, along side the railroad tracks in Centralia.
The hostage from the Centralia Massacre, Sgt. Tom Goodman, was taken along by Bloody Bill Anderson’s band as they moved west to avoid Union troops. On the tenth day of his capture, Goodman managed to escape from the bushwhackers as they prepared to cross the Missouri River at Rocheport.
Bloody Bill Anderson was killed by Federal troops in western Missouri less than a month after the Centralia Massacre and Battle.
The events at Centralia were the last reported slayings in Boone County, although the guerrilla plunderings were a repeated affair almost to the very end of the Civil War.
In 1873, the bodies of the victims of the Centralia Massacre and Battle were moved to a National cemetery in Jefferson City. An obelisk marker still memorializes the remains of the victims. It was reported that every body reinterred showed a bullet hole in the forehead directly between the eyes.
The James brothers, Cole Younger and many of the other bushwhackers became the nucleolus of the outlaw gangs that roamed and terrorized the mid-west for much of the remaining portion of the 19th century.
In 1957, during the celebration of Centralia's centennial, the Wabash Railroad, successor to the North Missouri Railroad, donated a monument to the two Centralia events, adjacent to the railroad terminal. In 1989, this monument was relocated in a nearby Centralia park to provide better access to the many Civil War history buffs who visit the area.
On September 27, 1994, a memorial marker was dedicated near the site of the Centralia Battle to better describe the action that took place in 1864. This marker was erected by the Boone County Historical Society on this 130th anniversary of the Centralia Civil War events.