History

The battle of Blair Mountain was the largest civil uprising on American soil since the U.S. Civil War. It was a spontaneous outpouring of rage and grief over conditions in the southern coalfields and the August 2, 1921, cold blooded murder of Matewan Police Chief Sid Hatfield, who a year earlier had befriended the miners when Stone Mountain Coal Co., tried to evict striking workers from their homes. The battle lines were drawn by August 26, 1921 and by Sept. 5, 1921, the rebellion was over.

Over the course of the disruption, between 10,000 and 15,000 coal miners assembled near Lens Creek in Kanawha County and armed themselves for a march over mountainous terrain to avenge Hatfield and to rescue illegally imprisoned miners in Mingo County.

The miners commandeered trains, company weapons, wagons, food, and other supplies as the rebellion grew. Awaiting them at the Logan County line was a citizen army led by Logan County Sheriff Don Chafin who swore not let an armed mob march through his county. The coal companies paid Chafin some $32,000 per year to keep the UMWA out of Logan County and to prevent Logan and Mingo miners from joining the union.

The two armies clashed along the top of Spruce Fork Ridge of Blair Mountain, firing more than a million rounds of ammunition at each other. The U.S. Army and Air Corps ultimately crushed the rebellion without firing a shot. The union surrendered rather than fire upon American soldiers, making clear their patriotism. Although the rebellion did not succeed, it ultimately served as the rallying cry for organized labor throughout the U.S. and was instrumental in bringing the benefits of organized labor to working class Americans in all major industries.

Historical account by Barbara Rasmussen

The Battle of Blair Mountain….Revisited

by Denise Giardina

(This article first appeared in Appalachian Voices on June, 2005. Reprinted with permission by Appalachian Voices.)

In late August and September of 1921, the largest armed rebellion in the U.S. since the Civil War was mounted in the coalfields of southern West Virginia. Union coal miners gathered, in numbers estimated anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 strong, outside of Charleston. It is perhaps misleading to call them an “army”, for they had few resources and lacked formal military discipline. And yet it would be too cavalier to label the miners a rag-tag gathering. They had leaders, they had arms, they had organization, and they even had supporting groups of doctors and nurses to treat the expected casualties.

The miners’ intention was to march to the southwestern coalfields and free their fellow miners from some of the most abject treatment in the history of American labor. In Mingo, Logan and McDowell counties, miners worked under abominable conditions, were paid next to nothing, had no freedom of speech or assembly, and were killed with impunity by mine guards and local politicos in an atmosphere reminiscent of a third-world dictatorship. In 1921, thousands of miners and their families were living in tents in deplorable conditions, evicted from their homes after having the temerity to join a union. The Miners’ March, as it was called, was set to change all that.

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