A Personal Rememberance of the Battle of Centralia, MO.

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Reproduced from an issue of Confederate Veteran magazine.


BATTLE AT CENTRALIA, MO.
WALTER WILLIAMS, IN KANSAS CITY PAPER.
The most terrible conflict of the Civil War took place on Missouri soil. More lives
were lost in proportion to the number of men engaged than were lost on any other
battlefield in American history. It was the battle of Centralia, September 27, 1864.
On that afternoon nearly two hundred Federal soldiers, commanded by Maj. A. V. E.
Johnson, of the 39th Missouri Infantry, riding out after guerrillas, met there Capts.
"Bill" Anderson and George Todd with two hundred and twenty five men. Scarcely a
dozen of the Federal soldiers escaped with their lives, while of the guerrillas only
two were killed and one mortally wounded. There is nowhere in the history of the
world record of a charge more destructive than that made on that fair September
afternoon. Every man in the Federal line of battle perished, and only a half score of
those left to hold the horses escaped.
Centralia, then a mere hamlet, now a thriving town of two thousand inhabitants, was
on the morning of the battle crowded with visitors. There had come up from Columbia
on the way to a political convention at Macon Maj. James S. Rollins, James H. Waugh,
John S. Samuel, James C. Orr, and others. They only escaped by pretending to be
Methodist ministers on their way to a Conference. Col. Turner S. Gordon, proprietor
of the Gordon Hotel in Columbia, is one of the few survivors. He had gone to
Centralia on the early morning train from St. Louis with John Kirtley, another
Columbian. Mr. Gordon, then a boy of sixteen years, was traveling in a car with
Federal soldiers. He saw the massacre of the morning. There were about twenty five
furloughed United States soldiers on board, besides some sick and disabled.
The guerrillas threw ties upon the track and concealed themselves. The engineer,
seeing the obstructions, checked up, when the guerrillas closed in on every side of
the train, firing their pistols and ordering the engineer to stop. Anderson and his
men immediately went through the car, killing all the Federal soldiers but one,
Sergeant Goodman, whom they kept to trade for one of Anderson's men. After robbing
the train they set fire to it and ordered the engineer to pull the throttle wide open
and jump off. These orders dark obeyed, but he had allowed the fire to go out, and
the train ran only two or three miles west of town.
After attending the Columbia Fair recently, Frank James, with two or three residents
of Boone County, visited the battlefield. It was the second time in his life that
James had been in Centralia. There could scarcely have been a contrast more striking
to Frank James's eyes as he drove out to the battlefield. The weather was much the
same as in September of 1864. There was the same blue sky and the chill of early
fall,
There is the spot,
said Frank James when two miles or mere from Centralia (before the main road was left
for a broad lane which led to S. L. Garrard's home). "Yonder on the rise near the
hayrick was a line of the Federal troops. Just this side, toward Centralia, stood the
detachment which held their horses. On the edge of the woods beyond our men formed."
His memory served him well. He remembered accurately the entire surroundings. "I can
go," he said in this connection, "to any battlefield where I was engaged and pick out
almost instantly the location. I suppose it's the closeness to death which
photographs the scene on one's memory."
A few moments later James arrived on the battlefield proper. Corn was growing rank,
and there was a herd of cattle feeding on the pasture land. Where the Federals stood
was the golden yellow of a hay field. He wandered around for a few moments taking in
his surroundings with almost passionate eagerness. Then he told this story:
The day before we had had a small skirmish down in Goslin's Lane, between Columbia
and Rocheport. I don't know what day it was. We could scarcely keep account of months
and years at that time, much less days. We killed a dozen Yankee soldiers in Goslin's
Lane and captured a wagon train of provisions and stuff. Out in the Perche hills that
night we joined forces with Bill Anderson. I was with Capt. George Todd, one of the
hardest fighters that ever lived, but less desperate than Anderson.
But Anderson had much to make him merciless. You remember the treatment his father
and sisters received at the hands of the Kansas Jayhawkers. That night we camped on
one of the branches leading into Young's Creek, not far from the home of Col. M. G.
Singleton. There were about two hundred and twenty five men all told in our combined
command.
Funny, isn't it? I've met or heard of thousands of men who claimed to be with
Quantrell or his lieutenants during the war, when the truth is there never were more
than three hundred and fifty or four hundred from the beginning to the end of the
war.
In the morning Anderson took about thirty of his company and went into Centralia,
where he captured a train, carried off a lot of stuff, and shot down some soldiers
who were on the train. In the afternoon Captain Todd detailed a detachment of ten men
under Dave Pool to go out and reconnoiter. We had heard there were some Yankee troops
in the neighborhood. In Pool's crowd were Wood and Tuck Hill, Jeff Emery, Bill
Stuart, John Pool, Payton Long, Zach Sutherland, and two others, names forgotten.
They were to find out if any Federals were around, how many, and if possible toll
them down toward our camp. Pool did his duty well. He found out the location of the
Federals, rode close to them, and then galloped rapidly away as if surprised. The
Federals followed. I have never found anybody who could tell how many
31 Confederate Veteran January 1909.
there were of them. Pool reported to us that there were three hundred and fifty, and
he was usually very accurate. On they came out from Centralia. Pool and his men came
in and reported. Todd called out: 'Mount up! Mount up!' " The piercing eyes. of James
flashed as he continued: "I can see them now yonder on that ridge. I don't care what
your histories say: they carried a black flag. It \apparently was a black apron tied
to a stick. We captured it in the battle that followed. We had no flag. We had no
time to get one and no chance to carry it if we had had one. The Yankees stopped near
the rise of the hill. Both sides were in full view of each other, though nearly half
a mile distant. The Yankees dismounted, gave their horses into the charge of a detail
of men, and prepared to fight.
John Koger, a funny fellow in our ranks, watched the Yankees get down from their
horses, and said: 'Why, the fools are going to fight us on foot!' And then added
seriously: 'God help 'em!'
We dismounted to tighten the belts on the horses, and then at the word of command
started on our charge. The ground, you see, rises sharply, and we had to charge up
hill. At first we moved slowly. Our line was nearly a quarter of a mile long, theirs
much closer together. We were still some six hundred yards away, our speed increasing
and our ranks closing up, when they fired their first and only time. Only two of our
men were killed Frank Shepherd and 'Hank' Williams. A third, Richard Kinney, was shot
and died three or four days later from lockjaw. Shepherd and Kinney rode on either
side of me, Kinney was my closest friend. We had ridden together from Texas, fought
and slept together, and it hurt me when I heard him say: 'Frank, I'm shot.' He kept
on riding for a time and thought his wound wasn't serious.
But we couldn't stop in that terrible charge for anything. Up the hill we went,
yelling like wild Indians. Almost in a twinkling we were on the Yankee line. They
seemed terrorized, hypnotized (?). Some of the Yankees were at 'fix bayonets,' some
were biting off their cartridges, preparing to reload. Yelling, shooting our pistols,
upon them we went. Not a single man of the line escaped. They were shot through the
head. The few who attempted to escape we followed into Centralia and on to Sturgeon.
There a Federal blockhouse stopped further pursuit. All along the road we killed
them, The first man and the last were killed by Arch Clements. He had the best horse
and got a little the start. That night we left this neighborhood and scattered. I
recrossed the river near Glasgow and went southward.
The dead soldiers were buried in a long trench on the south side of the Wabash
Railroad track, east of Centralia. The bodies were removed after some months to the
National Cemetery at Jefferson City. Engineer Clark, of the Wabash, says that there
were about one hundred and seventy five killed, including the twenty five who were
taken from the train in the morning. Other authorities, however, put the number at
over two hundred out of the total two hundred and twenty five Federal soldiers who
were on the battlefield.
Frank James continued: "We did not seek the fight. Johnson foolishly came out to hunt
us and he found us. Then we killed him and his men. Wouldn't he have killed every one
of us if he had had the chance? What is war for if it isn't to kill people for a
principle? The Yankee soldiers tried to kill every one of the Southern soldiers and
the soldiers from the South tried to kill all the Yanks, and that's all there is of
it. We were just there in the brush not molisting any body when Johnson and his men
came out after us. We never took prisoners. We couldn't do it. We either killed them
or turned them loose and we didn't turn many loose. The Centralia fight reminds me of
Macbeth in 'Never shake thy gory locks at me.' "

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Thank you for the article