In spring 1861, Missouri was a slave state divided over secession, with an uneasy peace between the pro-Confederate state government militia and Union forces headquartered in St. Louis. On June 11, 1861, Union and pro-Confederate leaders met in Jefferson City, but the conference ended abruptly when Union Gen. Nathaniel Lyon stormed out shouting, "This means war!" Four days later, Lyon's troops marched into the state capital and found that pro-secessionist government officials had left two days earlier. The Union Army then established a garrison at Jefferson City that operated throughout the war, and soldiers who died there were buried on land next to the old city cemetery and Woodland Cemetery. In 1867, the federal government bought 2 acres of Woodland Cemetery land used for military burials and designated it a national cemetery. Remains were reinterred there from Chariton, Cooper, Knox, Johnson, and Pettis counties, and by 1875 there were 754 interments, including three civilians and three Confederate soldiers. The cemetery was enclosed with a stone wall, a Second Empire-style lodge for the superintendent was built, and a flagstaff was installed; the east wall was later replaced with a wrought-iron fence, a stone utility building was completed in 1937, and the rostrum was added in 1942. The cemetery also became the resting place for dead from the Centralia fighting. On September 27, 1864, Confederate guerrillas led by "Bloody Bill" Anderson executed twenty-two Union soldiers returning home on furlough at the train station in Centralia, Missouri. Union Maj. A.V.E. Johnston, leading detachments from companies A, G, and H of the 39th Missouri Infantry, pursued them, but the U.S. forces were outnumbered and Johnston and 121 men were killed. Some of the dead were buried by residents in a trench grave near the railroad station, while others were first buried in nearby Mexico and later moved to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis. By 1868, the Centralia burial plot was enclosed by a board fence, and a monument bearing the names of 122 officers and enlisted men of the 39th Missouri who died in the battle was placed there. In 1873, those remains and the monument were moved to the national cemetery between Sections 7 and 9.
