On this day in 1921, the first skirmishes of the Battle of Blair Mountain took place. Involving more than 10,000 armed workers battling with state and strikebreaking forces, it was the largest post-Civil War uprising and the largest labor uprising in U.S. history.
The conflict occurred in Logan County, West Virginia as part of the "Coal Wars", a series of early 20th-century labor disputes in Appalachia.
The rise of the UMWA in West Virginia
West Virginia—which seceded from Virginia in 1861 to remain in the Union—can be credited for developing much of American capitalist industry. In the years after the Civil War, land was seized up in great swaths by American capitalists. By the turn of the century, over 80% of the mining operations in the Southern counties of West Virginia were owned by absentee landowners.
Capitalist mining ripped up West Virginia, chewed up its rolling hills, spat out black dust, and made great fortunes. Nothing stood in its way. But the concentration of capitalist coal production created more than just cheap coal to fuel the factories in the industrial North. The booming coal industry also created the great mining proletariat in Colorado, across the Midwest, and into Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
In 1890, an organization of workers was finally created to confront the coal kings: the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). Notably, the early UMWA emphasized class solidarity and wrote in its founding constitution that “no local union or assembly is justified in discriminating against any person in securing or retaining work because of their African descent.”
The First Mine War
The 1902 strike was a partial victory for the Kanawha miners. But in 1912, unionized mines in the Midwest had won the 8-hour day, a pay increase, the right to free speech, and other concessions.
A strike broke out in April 1912, demanding union recognition and a two-and-a-half-cent raise. In May, the bosses along Paint Creek brought in Baldwin-Felts agents and began evicting families from company-owned homes. Evicted strikers and their families created a massive tent colony nearby and were soon ambushed by the bosses’ thugs with a hail of gunfire. At the end of May, a contingent of miners attacked Baldwin-Felts strikebreakers in Mucklow. This was the beginning of what would be a sanguinary war between capital and labor for over a year.
From May 1912 to March 1913, the miners on Paint and Cabin Creeks fought tooth and nail, utilizing hit-and-run tactics against armed mine guards, sniping trains full of scabs, and miners’ wives even ripped up train tracks in the middle of the night. Striking miners wore red neckerchieves around their necks or arms as a symbol of solidarity, and strikebreakers began to call strikers “rednecks” for short. Between September 1, 1912, and February 10, 1913, the state-imposed martial law three times.
All the miners’ leaders were arrested, including Mother Jones. The coal bosses were thrilled that the strike was on the verge of collapse. But a historical accident came to the miners’ rescue: Governor Glasscock’s term was up, and the newly elected Henry D. Hatfield took office.
The “Hatfield Contract” was not a complete victory but did impose union recognition on the Paint and Cabin Creek mine operators. Cabin Creek miners led by John Keeney refused the settlement and continued to fight until the end of July when the bosses finally agreed to their terms. Frank Keeney, the leader of the Cabin Creek strike, was elected president, and Fred Mooney became secretary-treasurer.
This struggle was a great spur for the American labor movement and inspired Ralph Chaplin’s well-known song, Solidarity Forever. Rank-and-file workers showed that militant tactics and class solidarity across racial lines are the only way to victory.
The Redneck War & the Battle of Blair Mountain
In April 1917, the US entered World War I. To fuel the war effort, West Virginia coal production reached 90 million tons and profits increased by 500%. In response, wildcat strikes broke out throughout the West Virginia coalfields, and tens of thousands joined the UMWA. To stop the rising strike wave, the bosses volunteered to make favorable deals with the UMWA.
Immediately after the war, the world descended into economic depression. Inspired by the Russian Revolution, workers across North America began a struggle to maintain the advances made by the labor movement during the war. This resulted in a massive explosion of class struggle and labor militancy in 1919. Over 4.2 million workers came out on strike that fateful year. However, despite their heroic efforts, these struggles all went down in defeat due to the lack of revolutionary leadership.
The mood of radicalization was reflected at the UMWA’s 1919 national convention, which expressed growing support for the nationalization of the coal industry. The Wall Street Journal wrote worryingly: “Lenin and Trotsky are on their way.” In the fall, a massive nationwide miners’ strike for higher wages shook the country. Despite draconian repression by the federal government, the UMWA secured a compromise victory and a 14% wage increase.
The “Battle of Matewan” was a significant turning point. Sid Hatfield was declared a hero by the UMWA, and the defeat of the Baldwin-Felts agents was an enormous impetus to the unionization drive. Although the local government was by no means a workers’ government, smaller towns can be more susceptible to working-class pressure than the state and federal government under certain conditions.
The Battle
On September 1, as the battle raged in Logan County on Blair Mountain, Keeney and Mooney—the official leaders of the insurrection—fled the state for Kentucky out of fear for their own lives. This left the miners’ army headless and reliant on Bill Blizzard for leadership. Chafin, desperate to break the miners’ lines, ordered biplanes to drop gas and shrapnel bombs, but this proved insufficient to cow the miners. One defender remarked that “the miners pushed the attack desperately; they had no sense of fear.”
Finally, President Harding sent in the army to quash the rebellion. By September 3, over 21,000 troops had entered and occupied southern West Virginia. The miners, many of them veterans of WWI, refused to fight against the army. That day, Bill Blizzard began a ceasefire, and the miners’ army was slowly disarmed and sent back home. Over one hundred lives had been sacrificed in the struggle, and the miners saw this as their victory. They naively believed that the federal troops would side with them and end Davis’s dictatorship in Mingo County. However, this illusion was short-lived as Harding was convinced by the coal barons that the federal government ought not to get further involved.
Disorganized by their own union leaders, confused by their local leaders’ vacillations, and now disarmed by the federal government, the miners of West Virginia were exposed to a reign of terror by the bosses and the state. Governor Morgan fumed at John L. Lewis: “Your silent encouragement of unlawful acts would indicate that Lenin and Trotsky are not without sincere followers in your organization.”
Over 900 miners were arrested and placed on trial for a plethora of offenses. The leaders of the UMWA, Keeney, Mooney, and Blizzard, among many others, were arrested on the grounds of treason and murder. The strike in Mingo was crushed, and all attempts to resurrect the struggle ended in failure. Lewis eliminated the left-wing of the UMWA and placed District 17 in receivership. Reaction swept through the state, graphically illustrated by the appearance of the Ku Klux Klan in West Virginia for the first time in 1924. The Mine Wars had come to an end.
Towards the next Blair Mountain!
The Battle of Blair Mountain remains one of the most heroic chapters of the American class struggle. From being the most backward segment of the American proletariat, the West Virginia miners became the most militant class fighters, combating not only their bosses and the bourgeois state but also their own union’s conservative bureaucracy. Nobody could demand more heroism, self-sacrifice, or examples of solidarity from these miners and their families.
Battle of Blair Mountain RLR :meow-tankie: :meow-anarchist:
Labor History: 100 Years Since the Battle of Blair Mountain
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