A Doughboy Visits the Site of the Murder of the Tsar and His Family

Jesse Anderson Guarded a Similar Train

Aboard American Red Cross Train #15, 10 July 1919:

Things are better at the front so we got started for Ekaterinburg with our cars and one car of medical supplies. We soon got into the Ural Mountains. They are beautiful; covered with pine, fir, and birch timber, and all kinds of wild flowers and ferns. [We saw] about 80 Cossacks on their horses, practicing on the drill field. They were galloping and swinging their sabers. We are held up for six hours, just 25 versts (approximately 10 miles) from Ekaterinburg, then got to the junction 4 versts from Ekaterinburg by the morning of 11 July.

We saw miles of refugees leaving Ekaterinberg [sic]. The [White] Army is retreating. The Bolsheviks are only 40 miles away. The American Vice Consul Mr. Gilman got on our train. I saw one group of 500 Bolsheviki prisoners, and several groups of 15–20 marched off to their destiny (execution). The Siberian Army of 40,000 is retreating before an army of 37,000 Bolsheviks. 

Ipatiev House—Site of the Murders

I went uptown and saw the home of Professor Ipatiev which was the prison of Tsar Nicholas and his family, where the tsar, his wife Alexandra and son and daughters were murdered. All the stores are closed and houses vacated. Over 400,000 people have been made refugees and fled. This has happened in two days. We saw a carload of rotten horse meat and people were picking it over.

By the efforts of General Jack (of the Canadian Army) we got our cars attached to the refugee train of the Russian Army staff and left Ekaterinburg at 1 pm, 12 July. We went 13 versts and stopped. The train ahead of us ran into the train ahead of it. One was a sanitary [hospital] train and the other a train of prisoners and refugees. It was an awful sight—about 30 cars were total wrecks. It took 5 hours to clear the track. We got started again at 7 o'clock.

Source: The Diary of Jesse A. Anderson, AEF Siberia