59, which declared: "Whenever an unarmed Union citizen is murdered, four guerrillas will be selected from the prison and publicly shot to death at the most convenient place near the scene of the outrages.

This was due to the actions of Sue Mundy, a former trooper under John Hunt Morgan who terrorized Union forces in Kentucky during the later years of the American Civil War.

They were buried in shallow graves originally, then re-buried in a Presbyterian cemetery, and finally in 1890 moved to their current location, with the dedication of the Martyrs Monument.

On November 5, Burbridge had a firing squad of forty execute the Confederates in what was then the town of Midway's "commons", forcing local men to watch the event.

The fallen prisoners were then buried in a shallow trench, but on the next day were reburied at the former Presbyterian Church gravesite, where they remained until the establishment of the monument in 1890.