In the ensuing Battle of Centralia a large detachment of U.S. Army mounted infantry attempted to intercept Anderson, but nearly all of them were killed in combat.
In 1864, the military forces of the Confederate States, faced with a rapidly deteriorating position, launched an invasion of northern Missouri.
[2] At 9:00 a.m. on September 27, Anderson, with about 80 guerrillas, some dressed in stolen U.S. Army uniforms, moved into Centralia to cut the North Missouri Railroad.
Anderson blocked the North Missouri Railroad line, a fact that the engineer of an approaching train failed to realize until too late, as the men he saw were wearing blue uniforms.
A total of 24 U.S. soldiers were aboard, all on leave after the Battle of Atlanta and heading to their homes in northwest Missouri or southwest Iowa.
When Anderson called for an officer, Sergeant Thomas Goodman stepped forward, expecting to be shot so the rest would be spared.
Goodman spent ten days in the captivity of the guerrillas before escaping at night as they prepared to cross the Missouri River near Rocheport.
[5] At about 3:00 p.m., U.S. Army Major Andrew Vern Emen Johnston, a former schoolteacher without much military experience, led 146 men of the newly formed 39th Missouri Infantry Regiment (Mounted) and rode into Centralia.
On September 28, 1864, in a letter to U.S. Army General William Rosecrans, U.S. Brigadier General Clinton B. Fisk suggested depopulation and devastation in retribution for the massacre:I had the honor to write you fully under yesterday's date, since which time my telegrams have advised you of the disasters at Centralia.