If you will use the search engine attached to this forum, you should find material about the burial places of those men murdered at the train station in Centralia, and perhaps even references about the origin of that information. A few months back it was discussed in this forum, although I do not recall how detailed was the discussion about the burials. Someone more knowledgeable about me on that topic should come on soon, and probably several.

My input is about Confederate Lieutenant John C. Thornton and the likelihood of which part of his force would have been involved with the guerrillas at Centralia. LTC Thornton was a recruiter and a very successful one; that is, his command recruited literally hundreds of men from the Platte, Buchanan, Clay, Ray, and Clinton County area, and perhaps even further out. A great reason for his success remaining covert with his recruiting cadre and all those recruits under the very noses of the Union forces in that area was in his security force that served him so well for many months in the winter of 1863-1864 and well into the open insurgency in July and August 1864. During August Thornton's insurgency was defeated and driven back underground by overwhelming Federal forces.

That security force was, in the main, the twin guerrilla commands of Charles F. "Fletch" Taylor (of Jackson County and formerly of Quantrill's band in west-central Missouri) and Confederate Captain-turned-guerrilla John W. Thrailkill, formerly of Holt County. At some point after Thornton's recruiting force was driven back into hiding, Taylor's and Thrailkill's guerrillas went off to operate on their own, and ended up on 23 September 1864 in the amalgamated bushwhacker force that hit Centralia on 27 September 1864. "Fletch" Taylor, by the way, was severely wounded returning from a guerrilla council of war 8 August 1864 in north Lafayette County and his 40 to 50 guerrillas, then hiding in a hidden camp in Clay or Ray County, were taken in by Bill Anderson, whose band lined up those Union soldiers from the train, disarmed the few who had firearms, and murdered them (all but one or two who escaped with the help of civilians, according to local Boone County sources). The other guerrilla bands present, including Thrailkill's, did not take part in the raid of Centralia that captured the train, but did take part in other actions against Union troops that day.

It is entirely possible that some of Thornton's recruits and recruiting cadre joined Taylor's and Thrailkill's bands, but we are talking about possibly a few men and not very many. LTC Thornton kept responsibility for the over 500-or-so men he recruited into his command, and held the bulk of his recruits under his subordinate leaders hiding in small groups of about 50 each until he could safely infiltrate them in those groups south of the Missouri River, through the efforts of former Quantrill guerrillas in Lafayette County, and eventually through the cordon of Union cavalry patrols and posts in southwest Missouri all the way to the Confederate army in Arkansas. This was no small feat, either. Of course, this does not include the many recruits captured or killed, or who returned home or into hiding away from their new units, or escaped into the West. Because a large number of Thornton's new men included turncoat Union EMM of the special "Paw Paw Militia," the Federal pursuers of Thornton's force were disinclined to take prisoners, and a number of those they did capture were convicted by tribunals in St. Joseph and executed. Nobody ever accurately tallied the casualties from Thornton's failed insurgency, but the number of killed and captured was high--certainly in the scores of men.

Records of Confederate recruits, and especially those who never made it to regular Confederate units later on, are sketchy at best, and not well recorded at the Missouri State Archives. If you suspect some of your southern ancestor cousins responded to Thornton's call for recruits, you may find some indications in local historical records in their home counties, or perhaps in family records. It seems unlikely they were part of the amalgamated guerrilla command at Centralia, although not entirely out of the question. If, however, you discover military service records of your ancestor cousins from Platte, Buchanan, and Harrison Counties subsequent to 27 September 1864, I would say it is unlikely they were present with the guerrillas at Centralia.

I say this to give you some assurance about those cousins. I realize this does not ameliorate your horror at discovering the inhumane treatment Artificer Thomas endured as a captive of Bill Anderson's guerrillas at the train station. From that point on until the end of the war, when Union troops discovered Bill Anderson band members or even guerrillas present at Centralia as their captives, they routinely either killed them out of hand or sent them to tribunal and execution. I saw documentation of several examples of this throughout the fall of 1864 and winter of 1864-1865.

Bruce Nichols