153: West Virginia’s Mine Wars: From Trouble in Matewan to the Battle of Blair Mountain
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It's just past 12 noon on a dreary, gray, and cloud-covered Wednesday, May 19th, 1920. We're on Mate Street in the small downtown of Matewan, West Virginia, where 13 men are just stepping out of the Uriah's Hotel.

With Winchester rifles in their hands and pistols tucked inside their suits, the group climbs into three vehicles. They're ready to carry out the mission that's brought them to this small town, evicting Union miners. Now, this baker's dozen of armed suits only have a quarter of a mile to cover, but while they drive, let me fill you in on the situation.

These 13 gents are from the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, though miners in the area are more likely to call them "bombs" or "thugs" than detectives. Across its three decades of existence, the Baldwin-Felts Agency has served as the muscle for West Virginia's adamantly anti-union coal companies.

Basically, these "detectives" are the coal company's deputized private police or security. And since the United Mine Workers of America's recent 27% wage increase has resulted in a slew of Matewan miners joining the union, well, the Baldwin-Felts have been busy. And that brings us to the detectives' task here in Matewan: fighting unionization by evicting union-joining miners and their families from Stone Mountain Coal Company housing up by Lick Creek.

Only minutes after leaving the Urias Hotel, the detectives pull up at the Kelly family's weatherboarded home. Or to get legal, they pull up at this house owned by the Stone Mountain Coal Company. Mrs. Kelly is washing clothes out back when the Baldwin-Felts men walk up to her, guns in hand. She begs them to wait, just until her husband, Charlie, returns from the mines. But the suit-wearing men refuse to listen.

They swiftly take the couple's bed, table, chairs, all personal belongings, and begin tossing it all out front on the dirt road. As the detectives work, Charlie Kelly comes home. He's soon joined by his fellow miners, as well as Mayor Cabell Testerman and quick-drawing, gun-slinging police chief, Sid Hatfield. Both officials are furious. Cabell and Sid approach the detectives' leader, Albert Feltz, and question if he and his men have proper county authorization.

Albert merely shrugs and answers that they can go check with the county, but he's not stopping. The mayor snaps back. "Well, you don't pull anything like that and get away with it around here." It's now 1:30 in the afternoon. Police Chief Sid Hatfield is calling the sheriff's office in Mingo County. Speaking with the deputy and county prosecutor, Sid learns that the detectives are acting illegally. They have neither the authority to make these evictions nor do most of them have permits to carry firearms.

As such, the county is sending him warrants to arrest the detectives, which will arrive on the 5 o'clock train. Sid couldn't be happier. He plans to arrest them. Though, the excited, gunslinging lawman does make a likely exaggerated bold statement, exclaiming, "We'll kill the goddamn sons of bitches before they get out of Maywan!" Oof, strong words, but worse. Anti-union phone operator Mae Chafin is listening in. She'll make sure this gets back to the detectives.

It's now late afternoon, perhaps 4:00 PM. Albert Feltz and his detectives are back at the Urias Hotel preparing to leave Maitwan. They've evicted six families and according to the stories making their way around town, that includes a pregnant woman, plenty of children, and one infant whose crib now lies in the dusty road.

Yes, their work here is done and fully aware that Sid Hatfield means to arrest them thanks to the eavesdropping phone operator, the majority of detectives without permits to carry are stowing their illegal firearms. Soon enough, they're ready. Time to go catch that 5 o'clock train back to their headquarters in Bluefield. A light drizzle falls on the detectives as they walk toward the train depot.

With just Albert Feltz and two others wearing guns, the suit-clad men are soon passing Chambers Hardware Store, less than a block to go. And that's when they see Police Chief Sid Hatfield. He stands, guns holstered, backed up by at least a dozen gun-bearing minors. It's at this point that the gangly officer announces to the private detectives that they're under arrest. Albert Feltz answers with a laugh. "Sid, I've got a warrant for you too!"

and I'm gonna take you with me to Bluefield." And with that, Albert pulls out the warrant. Sid likewise answers with a laugh. Albert continues to laugh. With neither man backing down from this facade of coolness, the two adversaries walk together, laughing and glaring as miners and detectives alike follow. All continue until they reach Testerman's Jewelry Store. That is Mayor Cowell Testerman's Jewelry Store.

The short and stocky city leader quickly steps out and puts himself right in the thick of it, examining the warrant for his police chief's arrest. The mayor sees right through the detective's games, exclaiming, "It's bogus!" Someone else yells out, "It might as well have been written on gingerbread!" And what happens from here? Oh, the tales to come contradict each other so greatly, God alone knows. All I can say for sure is that, still smiling, Albert reaches for his gun.

But like I said, Sid's a quick draw. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. Don't worry. We'll hear how this shootout, or massacre, depending on your point of view, ultimately ends.

It's an important piece of today's tale. The tale of early 20th century West Virginia's mine wars and its culmination in the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain. To grasp this story in full, we need to understand the spread of national workers' unions. As such, we'll trace that history until we see one in particular, the United Mine Workers of America, try to break into fiercely anti-union West Virginia.

We'll then learn about these mining companies and their mine guard system, which many miners of varying political views see as little more than indentured servitude or even slavery. Decades of this will enable Mother Jones to make inroads in the Mountain State and lead to a strike in 1912 among Paint Creek and Cabin Creek miners. We'll even see this system at play outside of West Virginia as we take a peek into Colorado's mine war in 1914.

But we then return quickly to West Virginia, where the mine wars are only getting hotter in the post-World War I years. We'll find out just how fast Police Chief Sid Hatfield's draw really is and follow that May 19, 1920 action as it leads to more clashes between mine owners and miners, including arrests, deaths, outright murder, and finally, the largest uprising in U.S. history since the Civil War, the Battle of Blair Mountain.

And, if we pay close attention, we'll see how this episode builds on the 1920s Red Scare and other prejudice-based fears that we learned about in the last two episodes. So with all of that, let's get to this tale of the United States' closest call with class warfare, the Mine Wars. And we begin with our background on national unions. Rewind.

While we could trace the history of labor unions to well before the mid-19th century, it's just after the Civil War in 1866 that America sees its first full-on national organization, the ever-so-appropriately named National Labor Union. Its most notable action is calling on Congress to limit the workday to eight hours. This will happen one day, but the National Labor Union won't be around to see it because the NLU ceases to exist less than a decade after opening.

But as the saying goes, when God closes a door, he opens a U.S. manufactured union installed window with OSHA approved safety features. In 1869, another nationwide labor organization rises, the Knights of Labor. The Knights promote cooperatively run shops. They ate our workday and want to organize workers across all sectors.

Ah, that's why we've seen the Knights in various places and supporting different trades in past episodes, like episode 98's Chicago-based Haymarket Riot and episode 101's Black Sharecroppers in Louisiana. Yet, the Haymarket's radicalism and violence, coupled with the Knights' vague promises, undermines this fairly moderate organization. Membership plummets in the late 1880s from over 700,000 to a mere 200,000.

While the Knights won't cease to exist anytime soon, this opens the path for another organization to become Labor's new King of the Hill. That new King is founded in 1886 and known as the American Federation of Labor, or the AFL. Its real secret to success is the pragmatic approach of its leader, Samuel Gompers. Raised in a strong Jewish working-class British family, Sam immigrated with his family as a teen from Britain to New York in 1863.

He then became a leader in his cigar makers local and by the mid-1860s numbered among those workers that, as we learned in episode 151, Marxism did not anticipate. Those who rejected the radicalism of a workers' revolution in favor of classical liberalism's demand for freedom but nonetheless seek to use democracy to curb unrestrained capitalism's injustices.

In brief, Sam thinks the Marxists, and even the Knights, make pie-in-the-sky impossible promises, which is why this pragmatic cigar roller refuses to align with either of them or any progressive movements. Rather, Sam runs the AFL like a business. He sticks to his budget and focuses on concrete achievements: union recognition, improving wages and hours, resolving grievances, and, of course, landing contracts. This works.

By 1893, the AFL is the leading national labor organization in America with various affiliated unions, including the newly created United Mine Workers of America. Founded in 1890 with a strong infusion from the declining Knights of Labor, the United Mine Workers of America, or the UMW, or the UMWA as it's also known, is heavily concentrated in Illinois and Pennsylvania in the mid-1890s.

But the UMW would like to expand south into the Appalachian Mountains' rich coal fields. So would Sam Gomper's AFL. But they've had a rough go organizing workers in West Virginia. Why is that? First, West Virginia mine owners are fighting against unions by pointing to their geographical disadvantage. Their coal has to travel farther than their more northern counterparts to reach Midwestern and Northeastern consumers. And in an industry with tight margins, that's no small thing.

They tell their workers that paying union wages could be the added expense that puts them under, leaving everyone out of work. But logical as that argument is on the surface, the real challenge to unions in West Virginia is the mine owners' near absolute control over their workers. See, more often than not, the mining companies own their employees' towns. Company towns, as they're known. This means the company owns all of the town's shack-like weatherboarded homes, and the miners have to pay them rent.

The company also owns the general store and jacks up the cost of goods, which the miners have no choice but to accept because the company doesn't pay them in US dollars. It pays them in company script. Miners can sell that script for real currency, but it'll cost them about 25 cents per dollar. Nor can miners always appeal to the government. These mining towns are generally on unincorporated county land and have no elected officials or public servants.

This allows the companies to operate what is called the "mine guard system" in which the only police or authorities are company hired guns. Usually Baldwin-Felts agents who use their rifles, pistols, and even machine guns to keep the miners in line rather than serve and protect the community. In short, West Virginia miners are so choked off from the free market and real government that most union leaders or advocates see it as hopeless. But that's not the case for one zealous woman, Mother Jones.

Mary Harris Jones, or Mother Jones as the aging labor organizer is known, is no stranger to hardship. Fleeing her native Ireland amid the death and starvation of the Great Hunger, she moved around quite a bit before ending up in Memphis, Tennessee, where she married union man and iron molder George Jones in 1861. They had four children together, but in 1867, Mary's familial happiness was ripped away by a yellow fever epidemic. The disease killed George and all four kids.

The loss gutted her. Mary will wear black for the rest of her life. Starting anew, Mary opened a sewing shop in Chicago only to lose everything in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The luckless woman found new purpose though in serving those who, like her late husband, were union laborers.

She connected with the Knights of Labor, was a part of the Haymarket Riot in 1886, the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, and now, in the 1890s, finds herself drawn to the cause of the United Mine Workers of America. The miners love their swearing, profane, black-clad 60-year-old advocate who fights for them. Her boys, as she always says, like a mother protecting her own children. Hence their nickname for her, Mother Jones.

Mother Jones doesn't give a damn about the Baldwin-Felts detectives. Amid the 1902 coal strike that we learned about in episode 112, she charges into West Virginia preaching the UMW gospel and, by this point, socialism. Miners in Kanoa County join the UMW, but it's a short brush with success for the labor movement. With the courts on their side, mining companies have union organizers arrested, including Mother Jones.

The courts force her from the state, but not without the prosecution first calling her "the most dangerous woman in America." She'll carry that label with pride for the rest of her life. A decade passes. In 1912, Kanoa County's unionized miners living near Paint Creek go on strike as their contracts expire. Mother Jones cancels her California speaking tour and rushes back to the Mountain State.

Soon, 300 Baldwin-Felts agents, some armed with machine guns, descend upon the area, determined to run unions out of the state. Things turn deadly. The July 26th Battle of Mucklow leaves 12 strikers and four agents dead. As tensions rise, Frank Keeney, who first met Mother Jones 10 years ago, asks her to help drum up support for the UMW in his community along nearby Cabin Creek.

She gladly helps her longtime protege, thereby bringing Frank's people into the strike. Capitalizing on this victory, she then organizes and leads a rally of miners at the state capitol in Charleston with a simple message: Get the Baldwin-Felts agents out. It's the afternoon of August 15th, 1912. Seventy-five-year-old, gray-haired and black-dressed, Mother Jones pushes past banners and signs as she ascends the stone steps in front of the capitol building in Charleston, West Virginia.

Surveying the 2,000 strong crowd, she knows that her week of organizing has been well spent. Most here are women and children, but 200 or so are Kanawa County minors who've come just to hear her speak. On the edge of the crowd are cigar-chomping businessmen eager to hear what she has to say. So, why keep them waiting? Mother Jones climbs atop the prepared speaker's box. She quickly grabs their attention with her thick, brogue accent.

This, my friends, marks in my estimation the most remarkable move ever made in the state of West Virginia. I want to say make no settlement until they sign up that every bloody murderer of a guard has got to go. If a sheriff had done his duty as a citizen of this state and according to his oath he would have disarmed the guards and then there would have been no more trouble.

here on the steps of the capital of West Virginia, I say that if the governor won't make them go, then we will make them go. Speaking for an hour and a half, Mother Jones did punctuate her speech with occasional reminders to remain peaceful, but her thinly veiled call for violence is not lost on anyone. Governor William Glasscott responds by declaring martial law in the region. The National Guard then disarms the miners and sends the mine guards away.

This creates a temporary peace, but as martial law ends and the UMW seeks to negotiate, mine operators reject their overtures. The Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike continues. Indeed, West Virginians don't know it, but a decade-long coal mine war is beginning in their state. With more violence, the governor calls once more for martial law. Things calm down, so this second round of martial law ends, but in February 1913, a striking miner snipes a strikebreaker near Mucklow.

The Baldwin-Felts agents take revenge by using an armored train, nicknamed the Bull Moose Special, to terrorize the miners' tent camp under the cover of night. While we can't say who fires the first shot, the morning rises on one dead miner and a wounded woman. Ugh. This latest batch of violence, coupled with the arrest of Mother Jones that same February, is all making West Virginia look bad on the national stage. Congress opens an investigation.

West Virginia's state legislature responds by passing the Wirtz Bill, which makes it unlawful for "deputies to act as or perform any duties in the capacity of guards for any private individual or firm or corporation." Side note: the law is toothless as it lacks any penalty for breaking it. Meanwhile, newly sworn-in Governor Henry Hatfield grants Mother Jones a pardon. Mother Jones leaves the state, but she's not rudderless.

That same summer of 1913, the United Mine Workers of America is looking to organize among Colorado miners. And so, the black-clad "Miners Angel" heads west. Sadly, the Centennial State's conflict between miners and mine owners is also turning bloody. The Colorado Coalfield War begins that September. The worst of it comes the following spring.

It's Monday morning, April 20th, 1914, the day after Orthodox Easter. Campfires crackle as some 900 tent dwellers prepare breakfast in their sprawling colony amid the sagebrush prairie next to a convergence of the Colorado and Southern Railroads just outside the small South Central Colorado mining town of Ludlow. It's a diverse, heavily immigrant group, reportedly representing over 20 different native languages.

But whatever their nationalities, all here watch as Major Patrick Hamrock of the Colorado National Guard and four of his men enter the camp. Are they here for peace? Or should the miners get their guns? Okay, a little background. It's been six months since the United Mine Workers of America called for a strike against three coal companies here in Colorado, including John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. The miners have done their part.

About 14,000, close to 95% of the state's coal miners, are refusing to work until they get union recognition, better wages, and living conditions. They moved out of company towns like Ludlow and have set up these tent colonies on the outskirts. They've also fought against the National Guard and incoming West Virginian Baldwin-Felts hired guns.

Since then, almost 30 people have been killed in sporadic gunfights and assassinations. Mother Jones has been arrested. A mounted saber charge has attacked a protesting women's group and last month, those same sabers killed two strikers. In short, things are tense out here. And with that, let's see where this discussion goes. With UMW District 15 leader John Lawson out of town, Louis Tikus fills in and meets with Major Hamrock at the edge of the camp.

A wavy-haired, handsome Greek immigrant, Louie doesn't consider the Colorado National Guard any better than the Baldwin-Felts agents. In the striker's eyes, they're both bought and paid for. As Louie walks up, the tension is only mounting. The miners look at the guns mounted at the hills around them, and they push in to hear what is said. Meanwhile, rotund, handlebar mustache-wearing, and khaki-clad Major Hamrock doesn't like this at all.

He's getting jittery. But so are the strikers, many of whom are immigrants and veterans of wars in the Balkans, Italy, and Cuba. They know all too well what it looks like when soldiers take strategic positions. And that's exactly what the National Guard is doing. Then a shot rings out. And as we've heard in this very episode and so many past, no one knows who fired it. But now the battle begins.

The striking miners run back to their tents and grab their guns. Women and children climb into the deep cellar-like holes under their tents, dug in preparation for this very possibility. The strikers run up and into the hills, hoping to draw the National Guard's fire away from the camp. But it doesn't. Instead, it just leaves the camp exposed. Militiamen fire at the camp's tents. The miners return fire, killing Private Alfred Martin.

Meanwhile, panicked 12-year-old Frank Snyder dashes out of his tent only to have a bullet rip through the back of his head. The battle continues for hours. As the day wears on, the militiamen press into the camp. Sources conflict, but whether a byproduct of flying bullets and campfires or the intentional actions of the National Guard, the tents are soon on fire. Yes, that includes some of the very tents under which the miners' wives and children are hiding in their cellar-like holes. Good God.

As night approaches, the whole prairie roars and crackles as an inferno consumes the camp. Women and children trapped under the tents choke on black smoke, asphyxiate, and die. This message is sponsored by Greenlight.

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It's impossible to say how many shot through or charred bodies lie dead that April 1914 night in Ludlow, Colorado. But at a minimum, at least 18 are from the striking miners camp. They include at least two women and 12 children.

They also include Louis Tikus, the Greek miner who, after being taken by the militia, was bludgeoned by a rifle to the back of his head and then shot three times. The National Guard lost at least one life, Private Alfred Martin. Those who oppose the Union call it a battle. They claim that many immigrants, particularly the Greeks, wanted a battle and had intended to attack the day before as a part of their celebration of Orthodox Easter. But Colorado's UMW miners don't buy it.

They call this the Ludlow Massacre and want revenge. Mine company owners are terrified to even walk down the street for fear of meeting a bullet. President Woodrow Wilson intervenes, sending federal troops by the end of the month. The U.S. Army is far more neutral than the locals serving in the Colorado National Guard, and that certainly helps to calm the violence. But by that same neutral token, they have no issue allowing strikebreakers into the mines.

Tension remains high through 1914, but in December, the Colorado Coal Fuel War comes to its end. John D. Rockefeller Jr. introduces his Rockefeller Plan, which curbs poor working conditions and gives miners a way to report grievances within the company. Meanwhile, the Victory American Company contracts with the United Mine Workers of America. These are the extent of the miners' victories, though.

In brief, Colorado's 15-month Coalfield War leaves the UMW largely on the outs, most striking miners jobless, and a body count anywhere between 69 to 199. This was indeed, as historian Thomas Andrews puts it, America's deadliest labor war.

Let's go big picture for a second and ask ourselves, how is it that the American Federation of Labor and the United Mine Workers are having such a hard time when this is supposedly the progressive era? What about all the recent wins for labor, like the eight-hour workday, child labor laws, and legal protections for working conditions, as we learned about back in episodes 112 through 114? Well, first, unions have seen great growth during the progressive era, especially earlier on.

As muckrakers exposed the worst of the nation's factories and mines in the first decade of the century, striking dropped while union membership went higher than ever. Sam Gomper's emphatically non-political AFL benefited from this, as did his ever-so-radical rival that came onto the scene in 1905, which I trust you recall from episode 151, the Industrial Workers of the World, or the IWW.

Sam remembers this period fondly, saying, It was the harvest of the years of organization which were beginning to bear fruit. But employers saw the scales of power tipping away from them. They too organized, forming groups like the National Association of Manufacturers, or the NAM, which began fighting back. It pushes what's called the open shop, which is a guarantee that anyone can be hired for a job regardless of union affiliation.

This argues that unions undermine individual liberty with their collective bargaining and violent opposition to workers who are ready and willing to work, such as strikebreakers. Ironically, these same employers contradict their language of liberty with contracts in which their workers must give up the liberty of joining a union as a condition of employment. Emphasizing the fear involved, union men call these yellow dog contracts, and they're quite effective at checking the growing power of unions.

A final point. In these great war years when, as we know from the past two episodes, revolutionary Russia will soon hatch a new red scare and peaking fears over ideologies and race are helping to rebirth the Ku Klux Klan. The heavily Eastern European immigrant and diverse makeup of native-born black and white minors are adding yet another layer of difficulty. Sam Gompers fights back.

Caving on the idea that Labor should stay out of politics and focus on organization, he allies the AFL with President Woodrow Wilson and the Democrats. If going partisan is what it takes to protect the right to organize, then Sam will do it with that sole purpose in mind. Or, as Sam puts it, quote, Close quote.

But while Sam is cozying up to the professorial president, employers like John D. Rockefeller Jr. are doubling down on the importance of preventing union recognition and keeping control in the hands of capital. Speaking before the House Committee on Mines and Mining as a result of the deadly Colorado Coalfield War, the New Yorker makes it clear that he won't compromise with violent, subversive unions using undercover men to foment dissent among previously happy workers.

He compares the struggle to the Revolutionary War and declares that "it is a great national issue of the most vital kind." Ironically, these large companies' success here only drives unskilled laborers toward more radical groups. Some become IWW Wobblies. But then the Great War comes.

As we know from episode 151, the IWW's public image only continues to sink as its celebrity socialist, Gene Debs, gets incarcerated for speaking against the draft. But conversely, the AFL's emphatically non-radical leader, Sam Gompers, stands resolutely in support of President Woodrow Wilson and the war. The AFL patriotically puts a stop to any plans to strike. This pays off big time.

Sam gets an advisory position on the National Council of Defense, and federal policy falls toward giving the AFL what it wants, thereby extending the eight-hour workday to even more laborers. But then the Great War ends. Federal restraints evaporate. Meanwhile, company owners are not only looking to win back more control in this capital-V labor tug-of-war, but they're also facing a post-war recession amid the sudden surplus of unneeded war materials.

This dynamic results in thousands of strikes across almost every industry, which, to invoke episode 151 once more, leads many companies and citizens to conclude Bolshevism has infiltrated American unions, even when those unions have patriotic or more conservative track records. In this environment, Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge becomes a hero as he stands against Boston's striking police in September 1919.

Cal sends in the National Guard and fires the entire police force, arguing that, quote, there is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime. Close quote. The move is enough of a win to help him land the vice presidential nomination with Republican presidential candidate Warren G. Harding in the 1920 election. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. That's a story for another day.

That same September 1919, the UMW calls on its miners to strike because coal operators are refusing to renegotiate wartime wage contracts. But this time, President Woodrow Wilson doesn't side with labor. Under the influence of Attorney General Mitchell Palmer, the White House urges the miners to get back to work. Almost 400,000 miners still go on strike, but in the midst of the Red Scare, public sentiment doesn't view the miners as pursuing fair negotiations. They see Bolshevism in the unions.

UMW President John L. Lewis decides not to push his luck, declaring, We are Americans. We cannot fight our government. The UMW accepts a compromise, a 27% wage increase, and no change in hours. But there's a thorn in the UMW president's side. And by a thorn, I mean West Virginia.

While the Great War managed to bring unions into all but three West Virginia counties near the Kentucky border, these continued holdouts will, in time, undermine the UMW's collective bargaining. The most important of these is Mingo County, which is well known for its rich coal fields. But Logan County, which sits on Mingo's long northeastern border and is the seat of power for the state's mine operators, has effectively blocked union organizers from it.

This is largely thanks to Sheriff Don Chafin, who is little more than the mine operator's hired hand. Still, with that 27% wage increase coming on March 31st, 1920, UMW President John Lewis decides now is the time to push his union into West Virginia's holdout non-union counties. Mingo County miners are on board. When they hear that they'll miss out on a 27% raise if they stay non-union, they get pretty upset.

The mine operators offer a raise, but they also raise prices at their company stores. Thus, by the end of April, Mingo County miners are signing up with the UMW by the hundreds every day. Mine operators respond by pulling from their old playbook. They fire the unionized miners and bring in men from the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to evict them.

Ah, and that brings us to where we started this episode. To May 19th, 1920, as Baldwin Felt's detectives slash thugs show up in the Mingo County town of Matewan and start evicting newly unionized Stone Mountain coal miners and their families. But let's note that this isn't a mining town on unincorporated county land, which means the private agents encounter resistance from actual public servants.

From Matewan Mayor, Cabell Testerman, and Police Chief Sid Two-Gun Hatfield. Now, Sid is only distantly related to the first of those two famous feuding families known as the Hatfields and McCoys, but no matter. At 27 years old, the tall, gangly, quick-drawing gunslinger with a winning, gold-filled smile leading to his nickname, Smiling Sid, more than lives up to the lore.

And I believe we left off with Sid displaying his gift for the draw against his foe, Albert Feltz. No one knows who fires first. All we know for sure is that, late in the afternoon of May 19th, 1920, downtown Matewan erupts with gunfire. But since only three agents have guns at this point, Felt brothers Albert and Lee, and agent C.B. Cunningham, the detectives don't stand a chance against the dozen or so well-armed miners.

Still, both sides quickly lose a leading man. Albert Feltz takes a bullet to the head. Mayor Cavill Testerman takes one to the stomach. Bullets fly at the detectives from the street. Some fly from nearby second story windows. What on earth? Did the miners plan this? Lee Feltz and Art Williams fire at each other, both missing every shot, but not Reese Chambers. Taking careful aim with his rifle, he drops this youngest of the Feltz brothers.

Out of bullets himself, Art charges forward, grabs a pistol from Lee's now lifeless body, and blasts wounded Detective A.J. Boor at near-blank range. As for which miner killed C.B. Cunningham, God alone knows. His body is riddled with bullets, and half of his head is gone.

By the time the 5:00 train pulls into Matewan's Depot, four innocent citizens are injured. The mayor lies mortally wounded, while two miners and seven detectives, including two Feltz brothers, are dead. Baldwin Feltz agents Tim Anderson, his wounded brother Walter, and separately, Oscar Bennett, manage to slip away and board the 5:00 train before it pulls out of the depot. Another agent, John McDowell, swims across the Tug River to Kentucky.

In total, six detectives survive the Battle of Matewan. Well, that's what the miners call it. But given that most detectives were unarmed, the anti-union crowd calls it the Matewan Massacre. After the battle or massacre, Sid is nothing less than a hero to union miners. They flock to the United Mine Workers. UMW President John Lewis and Mother Jones are ecstatic.

Only a month and a half later, on July 1st, 1920, UMW District 17 President Frank Keeney calls on his fellow Mingo County miners to strike. They do. Mine owners respond with firings, evictions, and playing up the current Red Scare. Meanwhile, Sid Hatfield and 22 other men are charged with murder for the battle or massacre of Matewan. The trial starts on January 26th, 1921, and the Baldwin-Felts Agency does its best to drag Sid's name through the mud.

They point to Sid marrying Mayor Cabell Testerman's widow, Jessie, only two weeks after the shootout and argue Sid set this all up to steal the mayor's wife. They even say Sid shot the mayor. In truth, Cabell had told Jessie that if anything ever happened to him, she should marry his dear friend, Sid, and let him take care of her. But still, the timing looks bad. And yet, the two-month trial ends with the jury finding Sid and all his co-defendants not guilty.

Those who support the union see justice as being served. Those who don't are convinced murderers are being released on the streets. But Sid isn't off the hook. As the mine war continues in Mingo County, as West Virginia Governor Ephraim Morgan invokes martial law that May and miners are arrested without warrants or even killed, Congress feels compelled to investigate. Sid's called upon to testify.

But while in Washington DC, Sid's informed of new charges against him and 30 others, this time for a raid last year against non-union miners at Mohawk in McDowell County. The lanky gunslinger has misgivings. He wasn't a part of this raid. McDowell County is a stronghold of the mining companies and Sid knows that Tom Feltz wants him dead. Sounds like a setup. Yet, Sam Montgomery urges him to go.

This prominent member of the legal community in West Virginia can't believe that the mining companies would condone cold-blooded murder. He advises Sid to return to McDowell County, peacefully and unarmed, to trust in the law, to trust the system. Okay, Sid agrees. It's mid-morning, August 1st, 1921.

Sid Hatfield, Ed Chambers, both of their wives, and Mingo County Deputy Jim Kirkpatrick are walking along the busy streets of McDowell County seat of Welch, West Virginia. The group arrived by train this morning. It was an uncomfortable ride since they had to share it with CE Lively, the same Baldwin-Feldt spy who outed himself to testify against Sid during his last trial. Even more awkwardly, the dark-haired informant followed them to the same restaurant for breakfast.

But no matter. The group is now walking to the courthouse, where they're due at 10:30. Trusting the law, both Sid and Ed are unarmed. Only Jim has a gun. He's here as their bodyguard. They soon arrive at the beautiful, ivy-covered, stone-built McDowell County Courthouse. Climbing its long steps, Sid waves to friends, his fellow defendants, ascending the other set of stairs. And that's when C.E. appears yet again.

In the blink of an eye, he draws and shoots at an enemy. Other Baldwin-Felts agents fire. The sound of discharging bullets rings through the streets as Sid, hit several times, falls dead. Smiling Sid. Two guns Sid. The terror of the tug. Call him what you will, but to West Virginia's Union miners, he was their knight in less than shining armor.

On August 3, 1921, two thousand or more from the mining community pay their respects to their slain hero and his dear friend Ed Chambers as the two days dead duo are laid to rest in Matewan. Meanwhile, C.E. Lively and his fellow Baldwin-Felts agents literally get away with murder, claiming they acted in self-defense at the McDowell County Courthouse.

Countless West Virginia minors seethe with rage as they pass along the story of Sid and Ed being, quote, shot down like dogs in front of their wives, close quote. While the local wheeling intelligencer describes these public murders as, quote, the most glaring and outrageous expression of contempt for law that has ever stained the history of West Virginia, close quote.

Many national newspapers dismiss it with their usual condescension toward the region and the people of Appalachia. Four days later, August 7th, legions of miners gather at West Virginia's state capitol in Charleston. Various local union leaders speak. They include UMW District 17's fiery president, Frank Keeney, and his fellow Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike leader-turned-District 17's secretary-treasurer, Fred Mooney.

Speaking in the wake of law and order flaunting Sid's murder, both of these slick-haired Mingo County men are fed up. In fact, with the exception of Mother Jones, all of the leaders here endorse violence. From the safety of the capitol's interior, the governor only takes a brief meeting with Frank and Fred to hear their demands for reform. He rejects them in full ten days later. Talk about fuel on the fire. Frankly, this is their breaking point.

As West Virginia's pro-union miners see it, they've spent their whole lives oppressed by the mine companies and their mine guard system. They've been abused terribly, at least since 1912's Paint Creek/Cabin Creek strike, and this year, 1921, things have gotten far worse.

Since the governor's declaration of martial law in May, dozens of Mingo County miners have been locked up, some for such innocuous First Amendment protected actions as assembling in groups of three or more or carrying a United Mine Workers Journal. Further, state troopers and an ill-trained citizens militia, hastily formed after the most recent declaration of martial law because West Virginia has yet to reconfigure its National Guard since the Great War, have roughed up miners and raided their camps.

Just two months ago, in June, 17 troopers carried out such a raid, arresting 45 minors while destroying their families' canvas tents, stoves, and out of sheer spite, pouring kerosene in their milk. This took the jailed minor count to over 100. And now, on top of all of this, Sid has been murdered. On the steps of the courthouse, no less, while the governor still refuses to listen? This is all too much.

Rifle-bearing miners gather by the thousands just outside Charleston in Marmot. Looking to Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney for leadership, this veritable army of pro-Union men is determined to march 80 miles southwest to Mingo County and liberate their jailed brethren. Terrified at this escalation, Mother Jones tries to stop it. She shows up in the miners' camp on August 24th, claiming to have a telegram from President Warren G. Harding in which he promises to end the mine guard system if the men do not march.

Frank Keeney calls her out, saying it's not real. She tells him to go to hell. Or Frank's right. And once that's proven, the nearly 20-year bond between these two is shattered. Heartbroken, Mother Jones leaves her boys turned rifle-wielding enraged men to follow their path. The path to Mingo County and what will be known as the Battle of Blair Mountain. They set out on August 25th. The militant, marching miners have a serious foe ahead of them.

Logan County Sheriff Don Chafin. I mentioned him briefly earlier, but to go a little deeper, this husky, dimple-chinned, 30-something man is the ruler of Logan County. In fact, Don Chafin is known as the Czar of Logan County. He does in Logan County what the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency does in the other counties, only he does it more legitimately as a duly elected sheriff.

The mine owners pay him handsomely for his loyalty, and with Logan County right in the middle of the marching Miner Army's path to Mingo County, he's determined not to allow this "mob" as he sees them to pass through his domain. To that end, Don raises his own army of deputies, state police, and volunteers. They and their machine guns are soon dug into northern Logan County's mountainous terrain, cutting off a dirt road crucial to the miners' southwestern path at Blair Mountain.

As the army of miners heads southwest, their leaders, Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney, are summoned to meet with US Army General Harry Bandholz in Charleston on Friday, August 26th. Yes, at this point, the president is paying attention and has sent the general to assess the situation. Governor Ephraim Morgan has told the general his version of the story: that the miners have killed, pillaged from their employers, and now, in the wake of Sid Hatfield's death, have become full-on insurrectionists.

The 56-year-old Philippines and Great War veteran general, known for his diplomatic skill, informs Frank and Fred that this march must stop now. Millions of Americans are out of work and the federal government can't risk West Virginia's labor war spreading across the nation. If they, as union leaders, will hit the brakes, no harm, no foul. But if not, the general says with a crisp snap of his fingers, "We are going to snuff this out just like that."

Frank and Fred get the memo. Gathering as many of their miners as possible at a ballpark, they relay the message. There's disagreement as others speak up. But then, one elderly black miner gives a solemn warning. "Boys, he's right. You ain't foolin' no more. This is our daddy talkin'. It's your real Uncle Sam." "Yeah, everyone here gets it. Trains are arranged to take the miners home. The march is over."

Or it would be if not for the acts of a few the next day, August 27th. First, some miners, including a pistol-wearing ringleader named "Bad Louis" White, refuse to end the march. Proclaiming "To hell with Keeney", he leads a group in taking a train at gunpoint. They then go from town to town rallying miners to take the fight to Blair in Logan County.

Meanwhile, Logan County's Czar, Sheriff John Chafin, sends 70 state police on a raid in the small town of Sharples that same day. His men kill two miners. Some wonder if the sheriff did this intentionally, if he wanted to provoke a fight. Some wonder if he was even in cahoots with Bad Lewis. After all, the miner has a brother that's wielding a gun on the sheriff's behalf. Whatever the truth of it all, these events fan the flames of the miners' rage anew.

The last few days of August are sheer madness. Chanting "Will hang Don Chafin" to a sour apple tree, thousands of miners renew their march southwest. Meanwhile, the Logan County Sheriff's numbers swell with untrained citizens playing militiamen. Governor Ephraim Morgan begs the White House for assistance. General Harry Bandholz returns while the President signs a message on Tuesday, August 30, giving the miners until noon on September 1 to surrender or face the U.S. Army.

But with Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney out of the picture, it's far too late for that. The clash at Blair Mountain is all but inevitable. It's Wednesday morning, August 31st, 1921. Both a Reverend and a minor, John Wilburn, is with his 75 pro-Union men, just waking up in their camp on the side of Blair Mountain.

John isn't a violent man, but after the sheriff's raid at Sharples last week, the tall, dark-featured man of God in coal decided that, quote, the time had come for me to lay down my Bible and pick up my rifle and fight for my rights, close quote. That's what's brought him to Blair Mountain. And as of this morning, he and his men are determined that they'll press through to the town of Blair this very day.

But as they get breakfast and prepare to move out, John and his boys hear the crack of rifles. It's distant, but close enough to need investigation. John forms a group and leads them out. Reaching the summit of the ridge, John's patrol encounters three men with rifles. John's group halts. The two parties eye each other. They inch forward. Both sides have a password to distinguish friend from foe, and now both parties use them simultaneously.

The trio says, amen. John's posse says, I come creeping. Oh God, they're foes. Chief Deputy John Gore dies almost instantly. His nine children will never see him again. But he manages to fire in his last moments, taking down a black miner in the Union ranks named Eli Kemp. Non-Union miner John Colfago dies just as fast as the deputy leading him.

As for the third in their group, non-union miner Jim Muncy, he falls wounded and pleads for his life. But one of the Reverend's men, Henry Kitchen, isn't here to give mercy. He places the muzzle of his rifle against the non-union miner's forehead and yells, "Goddamn son of a bitchin' thug!" and pulls the trigger. The executed anti-unionist's head bounces off the ground and gushes blood as Henry adds, "That's for Sid."

Thus begins the Battle of Blair Mountain. Thousands of rifle and pistol bearing miners try to advance up Blair Mountain. The sheriff's men are grossly outnumbered, while holding the high ground and having machine guns, they keep their foe at bay. The fighting continues on September 1st with no attention given to the president's 12 noon ultimatum. Countless bullets zing and fly so thick across the miles long front that one Great War vet will later comment, "I never experienced anything like that battle." Biplanes fly overhead.

They drop gas and bombs among the miners. But are these US Army Air Service planes flown or commanded by Great War ace pilot turned Brigadier General Billy Mitchell? No. Although he's come to West Virginia in the midst of this turmoil and argued that his planes could use tear gas to drive the miners back, these biplanes are hired by the sheriff. They drop gas and homemade TNT filled pipe bombs. Still, make no mistake, the US Army is ready to step in.

turning to some of the finest infantry regiments in the U.S. Army. Then stationed at Ohio's Camp Sherman and Kentucky's Camp Knox, General Harry Bandholz orders them to report to West Virginia. He also calls on General Billy Mitchell's 88th Arrow Squadron. By September 2nd, 2,100 disciplined, trained army men are ready to enter the fray. But thankfully, it won't come to any of that. Many of these miners are Great War vets, and still others have a strong sense of patriotism.

Despite their rage at the mining companies and their Baldwin-Felton-forced mine guard system, evictions, low wages, arrests, and the murder of Sid Hatfield, these miners won't fight against their country. Between the miners' patriotism, General Harry Bandholt's diplomacy, and his troops' cool-headedness and discipline, not a single federal troop fires his gun or makes an arrest. The Battle of Blair Mountain is over.

And it was a battle indeed. In this days-long engagement across a several miles front, 10,000 pro-Union miners squared off against Sheriff Don Chafin's force of 3,000. The U.S. Army was called out. It involved machine guns, aircraft, and was the largest armed uprising the United States has seen since the Civil War. What's most remarkable, though, is the battle's unlikely low death toll.

While the exact figure will always remain elusive, less than 50 died. Some counts are as low as 16. Given the number of Great War veterans on both sides and frankly the impressive reputation of West Virginians for marksmanship, this figure is somewhat baffling. But the plane's pipe bombs all missed their marks or were duds. Blair Mountain's thick vegetation made visibility difficult. And neither side was in fact a regular army with officers pushing men to advance.

Perhaps these factors help make sense of the relatively minimal loss of life. The battle's longer aftermath isn't pretty for the pro-Union miners. As the U.S. Army arrived and thousands of miners disappeared from the mountain, many who surrendered properly faced charges. Between September and October of that same year, 1921, Logan County sees 1,217 charges for complicity in insurrection, 325 for murder, and 24 for treason against the state of West Virginia.

Not all, but many of these charges won't go anywhere, particularly after the trials are moved to union-sympathetic Fayette County. At that point, the mining companies see the hopelessness of their vengeance and allow the cases to drop. Those indicted include Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney. As with many others, the charges don't stick, but neither man's story ends happily. Hoping to salvage the United Mine Workers of America's reputation, UMW President John Lewis forces both of them out of the union.

Frank's life never recovers. At the end, this once leader will be a parking lot attendant. Fred's path is even worse. He'll make a failed run at politics, get divorced, and in 1952, use his shotgun to commit suicide. So, what do we make of West Virginia's mine wars? Or frankly, the nation's larger mine wars and other labor movements of the early 1920s?

Well, after the progressive era's heyday, we can see a theme connecting it to the fears we explored in the last two episodes, to the Red Scare and to the spike in ideological, racial, and religious hatred that gave a second KKK several years of prominence. Let's recall that in the midst of this Red Scare, even Boston's police failed to get public sympathy. If the police can be painted red in the eyes of the public, then what hope do the minors have?

More to the point, our short foray in Colorado gave us a taste of the mining industry's heavily immigrant workforce. Meanwhile, West Virginia has a sizable number of black miners, some of whom we met in our story today. Yes, despite Jim Crow, the realities of mining makes miners an unusually diverse group for the era. But this further contributed to the nation at large viewing the miners as Bolshevik-inspired or otherwise quote-unquote un-American.

Yet, a century removed, we can dispassionately see how that was clearly not the case. While some, like Mother Jones, were quite radical, more leaders, ranging from the AFL's Sam Gompers to local UMW leaders, rejected the extremes of Marxism. During the Battle of Blair Mountain, exactly one IWW Wobbly was identified among the 10,000 rebelling miners, and he was an outsider who'd come hoping this would turn into class warfare.

The newly formed Communist Party of America also hoped that Blair Mountain would turn into a capitalism-ending war, but as we know, the miners themselves didn't let that happen. And why? Because, by and large, these Appalachian boys weren't on the far left. They refused to fight against their country.

But for now, the pro-union miners know they've lost, and that's reflected in the UMW's membership in West Virginia. Between 1920 and the end of the decade, UMW membership in the state plummets from 50,000 to about 600. This won't really reverse until Franklin Roosevelt's presidency, meaning that, for the time being, West Virginia's miners will keep living the life that Ernie Ford will later describe in his most famous song.

You load 16 tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store." And so, the mine wars and the Battle of Blair Mountain end on a sour note in the eyes of most West Virginia miners. But if there is any victory for them, it is this: for one small moment, the oft-overlooked people of Appalachia made the nation pause and take notice of their plight.

And the miners will never forget that they chose to stop the fight and did so patriotically. Sheriff Don Chatham and the mine owners never broke them.

History That Doesn't Suck is created and hosted by me, Greg Jackson. Episode researched and written by Greg Jackson and Will King. Additional research by Darby Glass. Production by Airship. Sound design by Molly Bach. Theme music composed by Greg Jackson. Arrangement and additional composition by Lindsey Graham of Airship. For bibliography of all primary and secondary sources consulted in writing this episode, visit htbspodcast.com.