I have been researching the the final disposition of the soldiers killed at Centralia for several years and haven’t gathered all the information as of yet. From what I have gathered so far, I doubt that any of them were buried at Wellsville. Only the initial 34 found in Centralia proper (23 or so from the massacre and a few that escaped from the battle to be killed in town) were taken to Mexico. The rest were gathered up over the next couple of days and brought to town where they were claimed by relatives or buried in the trench at Centralia. (If anyone has any documentation as to some of the soldiers being buried at Sturgeon, please pass it on.) This all goes against the passed down nurse's story of wherever the Wellsville soldiers were killed, they were not allowed to be buried there.

As to why soldiers were buried in National Cemeteries: After the war the US government set up a program where they went around to known battle graves and reinterred the Union soldiers to a National Cemetery. Somewhere around 1867 or 1868 (I do not have the document at my fingertips), the Union removed 50+ soldiers from the Mexico cemetery and transported them to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery at St. Louis. Approx 35 of these are listed as a death date of Sept 27, 1864 or the Fall of 1864 most with no name and therefore listed as UNKNOWN.

In 1878, a contractor was used to move the bodies from the trench at Centralia to the National Cemetery at Jefferson City. There are conflicting newspaper articles in regard to the number moved – between 79 and 84 and I have yet to find official documentation.

As to the question in regard to the true count of bodies removed by a contractor from Centralia to Jefferson City and if the contractor fudged the number - I wonder if the local folks might have snuck a body or two in the trench – maybe an unknown traveler or destitute or diseased person - in the 14 years they were there.