Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Post #6
by Tonya Graham McQuade
Centralia is a small town of 4,200 people that straddles Boone and Audrain County, about 130 miles northwest of St. Louis. It’s also the town where my great grandfather, William Francis Traughber, graduated from Centralia High School and is near the town of Saling in Audrain County where he was born. His parents - my great-great grandparents Francis “Frank” Marion Traughber and Mariah “Marnie” Agnes Bryson Traughber – lived the latter part of their lives in Centralia and are buried in Centralia Cemetery, alongside several of their children and Frank’s mother, Elizabeth Crawford Traughber.
As it turned out, I made two visits to Centralia during my April visit to Missouri: the first time with my husband Mike as we returned to St. Louis from Hannibal, Missouri, where we had gone to see all the Mark Twain sites; the second time, with my parents as we returned to St. Louis from our family history exploration in Kirksville. Both times, I visited the Centralia Cemetery. The first time, however, Mike and I explored Centralia a bit more since it is a location that plays a role in the book I am working on.
On September 27, 1864, this small town became the site of the Centralia Massacre, and later that same day, the site of one of the bloodiest Civil War battles in terms of the percentage of soldiers killed. Both sides of my Petree-Traughber family, as it turns out, had connections to this massacre – but they were supporting different sides in the war.
I first learned about the Centralia Massacre and the family connection when I came across a text online that mentioned Francis Marion Traughber’s name. According to this 407-page document titled “This Work of Fiends”: Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on the Confederate Guerrilla Actions at Centralia, Missouri, September 27, 1864, F.M. Traughber had received a telegram from a “George Washington Bryson” asking him to tell his sons he had been injured by an old bullet that had never been removed from his pelvis. The bullet was one with which he had been shot in 1864 by Union troops who were pursuing him – the same Union troops that would later be killed in the Centralia Battle.
As the authors of the document, Thiessen, Scott, and Dasovich state:
“The minie ball [with which Bryson was shot] was not extracted from the hip and came near causing the death of Captain Bryson some forty years after the war. He was riding a horse on his ranch in Texas after cattle, when the horse jumped throwing Mr. Bryson upon the saddle tree and the leaden ball fractured the bone in his hip. He was taken to a hospital for treatment, and it was F.M. Traughber of Centralia who carried the news to the Bryson boys in this section, Capt. Bryson having directed the telegram to Mr. Traughber here”.
Why would he send this telegram to F.M. Traughber?
G.W. “Wash” Bryson was Marnie Bryson Traughber’s brother. During the war, however, Bryson was also a Confederate captain who sometimes joined with guerrillas in attacks on Union soldiers, supporters, and supplies. In September 1864, he was on an official “recruiting mission,” under orders from Confederate Gens. Sterling Price and Kirby Smith, to scout for men near his former home in Boone County to join the Confederate army.
About three weeks before the Centralia Massacre, on September 7, 1864, Bryson and his troops had captured a wagon load of ammunition and guns, including 75 guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition, after firing on Federal troops; soon after, he stopped a train near Centralia that was carrying four carloads of horses. He and his group stole 40 horses, as well as other supplies from the train, plus captured Federal troops whom Bryson threatened to kill, but eventually released about a week later.
The federal troops in the Centralia Massacre were not so fortunate.
When I read the Civil War letters written by my GGG Grandfather James Calaway Hale, I discovered another family connection: he narrowly avoided being on the train that was attacked in the massacre because he did not get the furlough he had requested. Here is an excerpt from his letter, where he writes both of the “glorious news” of the Union victory at Pilot Knob and the “lucky escape” he made by not being on the Northern Missouri Train on September 27:
Marine Hospital, St. Louis, MO – September 30, 1864
Dear son and daughter,
It is with great pleasure that I am permitted to drop a few lines to you both to let you know that I am well and hearty at present time, thank almighty god for his kind mercies towards me, hoping these few lines may find you all well and doing well.
We have glorious news today. They have had a battle at Pilot Knob on the 28th with old Price and Marmaduke. They killed and wounded 1500 Rebs, and our loss was nine killed and sixty wounded. That is the way I love to hear. It will not take long to clean old Price and Marmaduke up at them licks. They is great excitement here at this time. They have been drafting and arming all the militia in the county. They is this morning twelve thousand militia in camp here in Camp Jackson in sight of Benton Barracks, and three thousand more will be there soon. Several thousand cavalry have passed through here two or three days ago for to meet Old Price. I think they will get Old Price, but they say Old Price is making for Rolla. They is not scarcely a man left - business is all stopped through the city….
O, but I made a lucky escape the other day by not starting home. The very train I would have been on was all massacred - stopped the [railroad] cars. They was twenty-four soldiers on it. They shot them dead, robbed the train, set fire to it, and started in running down the track before it burnt up. About three o’clock they came across some more soldiers and killed and scalped another lot. All amounted to one hundred and twenty-two. I am afraid to start home at this time. I would like to be at home, but I will hold on a few days longer….
So no more at present but still remains your affectionate father until death,
James C. Hale
And now, as I explain in this excerpt from the book I am working on:
James’s “lucky escape” had come when he narrowly avoided the Centralia Massacre perpetrated by William “Bloody Bill” Anderson and his guerrilla band. Various guerrilla bands had been engaged in numerous smaller skirmishes prior to Centralia, and everyone in northern Missouri had been feeling on edge. There had been attacks in both Boone County and Fayette, with a number of Union soldiers – as well as Confederate guerrillas – being killed.
These attacks were being encouraged by Confederate Gen. Sterling Price, who had been urging guerrilla bands to disrupt the railroads, hoping this would help his effort to invade northern Missouri with his Missouri State Guard. He was determined to help the Confederacy retake Missouri now that so many Union soldiers had been sent east – and he hoped to do so before the elections in November, thinking this might help turn public sentiment in their favor. The Confederacy knew the reelection of Abraham Lincoln would significantly hurt their cause, whereas the election of a “Peace Democrat” might finally lead to official recognition of the Confederacy and an end to the fighting. There was talk that Price might be planning to attack Jefferson City or possibly even St. Louis.
As mentioned above, Capt. G.W. Bryson was also in the Boone County area of Missouri – an area called “Little Dixie” because of its strong southern support – to look for recruits to join the Confederate army. Many anti-Unionists had moved there after they had been forced to move out of four Missouri counties near the western border with Kansas after the attack on Lawrence, Kansas, in August 1863 by another group of bushwhackers.
When Bryson’s men encountered the guerrillas led by “Bloody Bill” Anderson who would eventually be involved in the Centralia Massacre, they mistakenly fired upon them, thinking they were the enemy since they were wearing stolen Union uniforms. Anderson was not happy with their error.
As stated in History of Boone County, an 1882 work detailing the early years of the county by newspaper publisher William F. Switzler:
“The firing by Bryson’s men was soon discovered by him to be a mistake, they supposing Anderson’s pickets to be Federal soldiers, and a lieutenant was sent to Anderson to make the needed explanation and to propose a union of their forces. Anderson indignantly refused to receive him. ‘Your men are either d - - d fools or worse,’ he said, ‘or you would not have fired at us. I don’t want anything to do with you or any other of Perkins’s men.’ Col. Perkins was at that time raising a regiment for the Confederate army from this section, and to this regiment Bryson’s company belonged."
As a result, “Wash” Bryson (I’m happy to say) was not part of the infamous Centralia Massacre that soon followed. In fact, he was shot the day before the massacre by Union troops who were pursuing him and his men, so he had sent a scout to Centralia to seek medical care and a wagon to carry him to safety. The bullet with which he was shot was the one described above that forty years later caused him injury. While his scout was in town seeking a doctor, the guerrillas arrived.
It was the morning of September 27 when Anderson and about 80 of his guerrillas rode into Centralia. Initially, according to Centralia residents, the guerrillas seemed more interested in looting local businesses, drinking large amounts of whiskey, and robbing a stage coach. However, soon Anderson and his men – many dressed in stolen blue Union uniforms – heard the Northern Missouri Railroad train coming from the direction of Mexico, Missouri, and they hurried toward the depot.
There, they blocked the rail line, swarmed the train, and separated the civilians from the soldiers. They robbed the civilians, then ordered the twenty-four Union soldiers onboard – who were mostly unarmed as they were heading home on furlough – to strip off their uniforms and asked if any officers were present.
According to witnesses, one brave man, Sergeant Thomas Goodman, stepped forward, apparently thinking that by doing so, he might save the others. Instead, Anderson and his men then shot the other twenty-three men, scalped them, and mutilated their bodies before setting fire to the train and sending it down the track toward the town of Sturgeon. They then torched the depot and rode off, taking Goodman with them as a prisoner. Goodman was able to escape ten days later and lived to tell the tale.
commemorating the Centralia Massacre
And here comes ANOTHER family connection. The burning train, which set off in the direction of the town of Sturgeon to the west, came to a stop a few miles outside of Centralia at the farm of James R. Bryson - Marnie’s oldest brother! Reportedly, too, he was part of the guerrilla band that fought the Union soldiers in the Battle of Centralia. Three Union soldiers who escaped from the battlefield were later shot near a corner of his property (Thiessen, et.al., This Work of Fiends).
Stay tuned for my next post: The Battle of Centralia – September 27, 1864
Quite interesting. You have great source material and your research really adds to the big picture.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I've really been enjoying doing all the research and learning more of my family's history.
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