A Blackened Page of History: The Aftermath of the Centralia Massacre

After gathering the bodies of his slain comrades, murdered at the hands of Bloody Bill Anderson and his band of guerillas outside the town of Centralia, Missouri in September 1864, one Iowa captain resolved to seek revenge for the deaths of his men.

          “I arrived on the ground the morning after the massacre and received a detailed account of it from an eyewitness,” he wrote to a friend in Illinois. “I had a small detail to look after the murdered men of our own regiment, as it was known that seven of them had been on the train. I was not long in finding them, but in an awfully mangled condition. The butchers had thrown some of them across the track and compelled the engineer to run a construction train over them. There were two men from my own company among the slain and I found one of them with nine bullet holes in him and his throat cut. The other one had three bullets and his throat cut. Now talk of peace with such a race, will you? I have made a vow to be revenged for the murder of my two boys, and I will have it with a big premium before I leave this state if the authorities don’t watch me too closely…”

          The letter was published unsigned, but I strongly suspect was written by Captain Thomas Jones of Co. C of the 1st Iowa Cavalry. It first saw publication in the October 19, 1864, edition of the Wilmington Independent published in Wilmington, Illinois. 

 

This photo of five officers of the 1st Iowa Volunteer Cavalry, depicts the soldier that I believe wrote this description of the Centralia Massacre, Captain Thomas Jones of Co. C who sits at bottom left. The officers, all identified, are as follows: Jones, bottom row left, Major John McDermott at center, Captain T.A. Bereman at right. Top row left is Lieutenant Samuel T. Craig and at right, Major Charles Lothrop. (Wilson's Creek National Battlefield) 

Mexico, Missouri

October 2, 1864

          On the 27th of September, as the train going west from St. Louis to Macon City was passing Centralia, 13 miles west of this place, it was stopped by a band of men claiming to be Confederate soldiers, but dressed in Federal uniform, and robbed of all the valuables and money upon the passengers and express. They compelled the passengers to get off the train which they set fire to and started off without engineer or conductor.

          There were a large number of discharged soldiers on their way to see their loved ones at home after having served out their time, but alas, that home they were destined never to see. After collecting all the booty they could find, they proceeded to their more hellish and brutal acts. They marched out all who wore any portion of the Federal uniform and shot them down like dogs, mangling and mutilating them in the most horrible manner.

          I arrived on the ground the morning after the massacre and received a detailed account of it from an eyewitness. I had a small detail to look after the murdered men of our own regiment, as it was known that seven of them had been on the train. I was not long in finding them, but in an awfully mangled condition. The butchers had thrown some of them across the track and compelled the engineer to run a construction train over them. There were two men from my own company among the slain and I found one of them with nine bullet holes in him and his throat cut. The other one had three bullets and his throat cut. These were men who had gone through many dangers and always did their duty bravely.

          We brought the poor fellows to this place and gave them a decent burial. We picked up 27 others and brought them here; this was all we could transport. There 155 others whom we buried near where they fell. Two others had crawled away some distance and died, making a total of 157 souls.

          Now talk of peace with such a race, will you? I have made a vow to be revenged for the murder of my two boys, and I will have it with a big premium before I leave this state if the authorities don’t watch me too closely as I am set for them and am not compelled to make report of all that transpires while out scouting.

 


          The Centralia Massacre was actually a two-part affair; the first event, described above, occurred on the morning of September 27, 1864, and resulted in a total of 22 soldiers and a single civilian being murdered. Later that afternoon, a detachment of troops from the 39th Missouri Militia under Major Andrew V.E. Johnston arrived and attacked Anderson’s camp. The militia were slaughtered nearly to the man and their bodies left all about town- this became known as the Battle of Centralia.

General Clinton B. Fisk messaged his commanding officer General William S. Rosecrans a few days later that Major Johnston's command was “completely overwhelmed and himself and command subjected to the most inhuman butchery and barbarities that blacken the pages of history. Major Johnston was murdered and scalped, 130 of his officers and men shared his fate. Most of them were shot through the head, then scalped, bayonets thrust through them, ears and noses cut off, and privates torn off and thrust into the mouths of the dying. The heart sickens and the mind recoils at the recital and contemplation of the barbarous atrocities.”

 

          It took a fair amount of detective work to land on the probable author of this letter as Captain Thomas Jones of Co. C of the 1st Iowa Cavalry. This letter, unsigned, was described as being from “a captain in an Iowa cavalry regiment writing to his friend in this town,” that town being Wilmington, Illinois.

The first task became narrowing down which Iowa cavalry regiment might have had troops either mustering out or active in Missouri in late September 1864. A quick search of the regimental services of Iowa’s cavalry regiments narrowed it down to the 1st and 3rd regiments. A deeper read of the History of Boone County’s account of the Centralia Massacre makes mention of a soldier of the 1st Iowa Cavalry calling out the guerillas while still on board the train.

          Lurton Ingersoll’s compendium of histories of Iowa regiments during the Civil War sealed the deal. In his account of the services of the 1st Iowa Cavalry, he states that “on the 27th of September, the savage guerilla Bill Anderson attacked and captured a train near Centralia and atrociously murdered all the soldiers aboard, numbering about 30, of whom seven were members of the 1st Iowa Cavalry.” Seven men matched exactly what our correspondent stated was his regiment’s loss in that bloody affair. So, it is the 1st Iowa Cavalry.

Ingersoll then gave the names of the seven men of the 1st Iowa Cavalry who were murdered, which are as follows:

Private Owen P. Gore, Co. A

Private Oscar G. Williams, Co. B

Private George W. Dilley, Co. B

Private John Russell, Co. C

Private Charles E. Madera, Co. C

Corporal Joseph H. Arnold, Co. E

Private Charles G. Carpenter, Co. K

          You might recall that our correspondent specifically mentioned finding two members of his company, which narrowed it down to the captain of either Co. B or Co. C of the 1st Iowa Cavalry. A quick search of the rosters of both companies yielded a pair of candidates:



Captain Joseph T. Foster, of Co. B. Foster enlisted from Lyons, Iowa as the 21-year-old Fourth Sergeant of Co. B on May 1, 1861, and progressively moved up the ranks, first to battalion sergeant major on October 7, 1861, orderly sergeant of Co. B on September 1, 1862, first lieutenant on December 21, 1862, and captain of August 5, 1864. He was wounded July 11, 1862, during the engagement at Big Creek Bluffs, Missouri. After being mustered out of service with the 1st Iowa on February 15, 1866, he accepted a commission as first lieutenant in the 8th U.S. Cavalry and served with the regulars until he was dismissed December 28, 1868.



Captain Thomas Jones of Co. C. Jones enlisted from Towanda, Illinois as a 31-year-old private in Co. C on June 13, 1861. Jones became orderly sergeant of the company on October 7, 1861, and was successively promoted to second lieutenant on July 1, 1862, first lieutenant on December 12, 1862, and finally to captain on February 14, 1863. Jones was discharged on December 16, 1864, at St. Louis, Missouri.

          The fact that Jones was a resident of Towanda, Illinois, a town along the railroad between Chicago and Wilmington, leads me to believe that the most probable author of the letter was Jones and not Foster, but I can’t say that with absolute certainty. What I can say with certainty is that the letter, a grisly account of the aftermath of the Centralia Massacre, was written by one of these two officers of the 1st Iowa Cavalry.


Bill Anderson photographed a month after the Centralia Massacre, killed in a skirmish with Federal troops. 

          It is worth noting that Bloody Bill Anderson’s days of terror were numbered, and his end reflects the epitome of savagery that gripped the Missouri frontier in the waning days of the Civil War. Scarcely a month at the events at Centralia, Anderson was shot behind the ear and instantly killed while charging against a Federal detachment near Albany, Missouri. His body was taken to nearby Richmond, Missouri, photographed, and paraded around town; one soldier cut off his finger to steal a ring. A pair of brothers, Frank and Jesse James, who rode with Anderson, went on to notorious careers as desperadoes in the Wild West of the post-Civil War era.  

Source:

Letter from Captain Thomas Jones, Co. C, 1st Iowa Volunteer Cavalry, Wilmington Independent (Illinois), October 19, 1864, pg. 2

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