CENTRAILIA MURDER.
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PARTICULARS OF THE HORRIBLE AFFAIR.
EDITORS MISSOURI DEMOCRAT:
Having just returned from Centrailia this forenoon, it becomes my unpleasant duty to recount the particulars of the horrible massacre of Union soldiers at that place yesterday afternoon by the combined gangs of desperadoes under Bill Anderson, Thrailkill, Poole, the two Todds, and others, numbering according to best accounts, nearly 400 men, all wearing blue overcoats. They camped, three miles from town on Singleton’s farm, the evening of the 26th, and the next day captured the passenger train going north, robbed the passengers, murdered all the soldiers — just twenty-four in number– who were, unarmed and incapable of resistance. Seven of them belonged to the 1st Iowa veterans, going to St. Joseph on business, and only three of them with arms. The others were furloughed from Banks’ army, and some discharged from Sherman’s army.
After burning the depot and killing the of the road, they set the train on fire agent and start d it off towards Sturgeon. It ran about three miles and burned up and the passengers walked on to Sturgeon.
A construction train followed up the passenger train. and was taken, compelling Engineer to run his locomotive over the bodies of the soldiers that lay on the track, throwing the forward trunks off, when they made him fire the train, and threatened to kill him because he couldn’t make it all burn.
Between three and four o’clock Maj. Johnson and 135 men of Colonel Kutzner’s regiment came in from Sturgeon. The gang had left, and they followed; leaving about forty men to guard the place.
About one and a half miles from town they found the enemy waiting for them, who charged them, and it is supposed killed all. Sixty-eight were left dead on Mr. F.B. Follenwider’s farm, and fourteen between that and town.
They then returned to town, and the troops there thought they were their own men until they were almost to them, when they charged upon them, and the soldiers retreated towards Sturgeon, but they killed sixteen or eighteen of them, and dispatches from Sturgeon say only twenty-five returned to that place.
It is supposed that Major Johnson and Captain Baxter are among the slain, not all having been brought in at the time of writing. Two were scalped, and all were more or less mangled, having been repeatedly shot after they were dead. Some surrendered being promised safety upon the condition, but were instantly shot after laying down their arms.
Four of the murderers were killed in the fight, and several wounded, by report of Mr. Singleton, who saw them, and among them one of their Captains, but all were taken away.
Thus perished 122 soldiers, as brave as ever lived by the most inhuman butchery that this war ever witnessed. Colonel Dyer is busily engaged, with Major McDermot, of the 1st Iowa cavalry, in bringing the bodies to this place for interment.
The blood of our mangled comrades cries out to us for vengeance,, and we are sworn take it.
HENRY L. MORRILL.
First Iowa Cavalry, Veteran Volunteers.
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Gallatin North Missourian, October 13, 1864, Page 2. via Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/article/gallatin-north-missourian-centralia-witn/199331332/ : accessed June 11, 2026), clip page for Centralia witness by user darryl_gpc54
