Liberalism: Power, Economic Crisis, Reform, War 113Hatfield was a folk hero, not jut in Matewan but throughout West Virginia,
for his pro-labor efforts, but in August 1921, as he was walking with his wife
up the courthouse steps in McDowell County, Baldwin-Felts detectives
gunned him down in daylight. The miners, still seeking union recognition,
still under the thumb of the operators, and now bitter over the deaths of
Testerman and Sid Hatfield, thus began the biggest armed conflict in the U.S.
in the period after the Civil War, the famed Battle of Blair Mountain.
Not long after Hatfield’s assassination in August and September 1921 in
Logan County, over 10,000 miners and 3000 police, agents, and scabs—called
the “Logan Defenders”—fought over the right to organize a union. Unlike
Sid Hatfield in Mingo, Sheriff Don Chafin in Logan was extremely anti-union
and ready to use whatever means necessary to defeat the union and crush the
miners. Chafin sent his men to the miners’ camps, but the strikers fought back
and disarmed the sheriff’s agents and sent them fleeing. Miners’ representa-
tives then marched to Charleston and presented the governor with a petition
of their demands, which he immediately rejected—as he was in the pockets
of the mine operators. The union men, believing that talks would get them
nowhere, planned a huge march on Mingo to free miners who had been
arrested by Chafin, end martial law in Logan County, and organize the union.
Mother Jones was still in West Virginia at the time and urged the miners not
to take the battle into Logan and Mingo counties because she feared a blood-
bath in the fight between the miners, who had only their own rifles, and the
deputies, who had heavy weapons and vehicles. But the conflict was too
intense to back off now, and on August 20th, over 13,000 miners met in
Kanawha County and began to march on Logan. Chafin knew they were
coming so set up his defense on Blair Mountain, and had the nation’s largest
private army, 2,000 armed men funded by the coal operators, as well as pub-
lic security forces, behind him.
As the battles began, President Harding joined in, on the operators’ side,
and threated to send in federal troops and air power. The miners backed
down, but Chafin was still hungry for a battle so sent his men after the coal
miners, who turned back to re-engage the fight. By late August, the battle
was full-scale. Chafin’s men were outnumbered by over 3:1 but had better
arms and higher positions on the mountain. The operators paid for private
planes to drop bombs on the advancing miners as well, and gas and explosive
bombs left over from the Great War were even used against the strikers. U.S.