Battle of Blair Mountain: The War on American Workers

In 1921, over 10,000 coal miners marched through the mountains of West Virginia with rifles, pistols, and dynamite. They dug trenches, wore uniforms, and exchanged gunfire with machine-gun nests and private planes dropping homemade bombs. It was the largest labor uprising in American history — and the largest domestic conflict since the Civil War. This week, we’re telling the story of the forgotten war for workers’ rights.

What happens when you mix economic exploitation, armed labor resistance, and a literal mountain range full of angry workers? You get a forgotten war. One that we’re only just starting to remember.

To understand just how wild the Battle of Blair Mountain really was, I want to start with something you’ve probably seen in the news over the last few years: modern labor fights.

Today, we’ve got workers at Amazon warehouses fighting for the right to unionize. We’ve got baristas at Starbucks voting to join national unions. There have been walkouts at Google. A nationwide strike from auto workers. Nurses, teachers, rail workers—nearly every labor sector in America has had some kind of organizing activity since 2020. It’s a national movement.

And even now, in 2024, those workers are often met with serious resistance. Firings. Legal delays. Corporate surveillance. There are companies spending millions of dollars hiring “union avoidance consultants”—yes, that’s a real job title.

But here’s the thing. As brutal as modern labor fights can be, they don’t usually involve machine guns. Or aerial bombs. Or trenches in the hills.

But in 1921, they did.

Let’s go back. At the start of the 20th century, coal was king. Everything—factories, trains, homes—ran on it. And West Virginia had a lot of it. Towns were built practically overnight to support the mining industry. These weren’t organic communities. They were company towns—entirely constructed and controlled by the coal operators. The company owned the housing. The company owned the stores. The schools. The doctors. The police. And most importantly: the payroll.

And that payroll wasn’t in U.S. dollars. Workers were paid in something called scrip—a company-issued currency that was only usable at company stores. So even though you were “paid,” you couldn’t take that money and leave. You could only spend it at inflated prices in your company’s store. It was a closed loop. Workers were essentially indentured.

Now combine that with some of the most dangerous working conditions in the country. Coal mines were incredibly unsafe. Between 1890 and 1910, mining accidents killed tens of thousands of workers. In 1907 alone, over 3,200 miners died. Explosions, gas leaks, cave-ins—it was a deadly profession. There were no federal regulations, no OSHA, no real accountability.

Naturally, miners started organizing. The United Mine Workers of America, or UMWA, was formed in 1890. Their goal was simple: fight for better wages, shorter hours, and safer conditions. But the coal companies were ready for them. They responded with violence.

That’s where the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency comes in. Now, if you’re imagining the Pinkertons—you’re close. The Baldwin–Felts detectives were private security agents hired by coal operators to suppress union activity. They carried guns. They spied on organizers. They beat union leaders. They evicted entire families from their homes if they suspected them of organizing. Sometimes they did more than that.

Let’s take a quick detour to the town of Matewan, West Virginia.

In May of 1920, Baldwin–Felts agents showed up to evict union-supporting miners from their homes. But they were confronted by a local police chief named Sid Hatfield. If that last name sounds familiar, yes—Sid was part of the Hatfield family from the famous Hatfield–McCoy feud. And Sid Hatfield wasn’t about to let outside men come into his town with rifles and start kicking people out of their homes.

So when the Baldwin–Felts agents started throwing people into the street, Sid Hatfield and the Matewan mayor tried to arrest them. A shootout followed. Ten men died—including two of the agents. It was a bloodbath in broad daylight. Sid Hatfield became an instant folk hero to miners all over Appalachia. He was young, brash, and stood up to the coal barons.

But the victory was short-lived. The next year, in August 1921, Sid Hatfield was assassinated. Shot on the courthouse steps in Welch, West Virginia, by Baldwin–Felts agents. No one was convicted. And this… this was the spark.

Because while labor organizing had been simmering in southern West Virginia for decades, this was the final insult. Miners who had served in World War I, men who had risked their lives for their country, were watching their friends and families be killed for trying to unionize.

And they’d had enough.

In late August 1921, over 10,000 coal miners began organizing what they called the Miner’s March—an armed march across the state toward Logan County, where the most anti-union coalfields were located.

And it wasn’t just a protest.

These men wore military uniforms. They carried rifles. They used wartime tactics. They had officers, logistics, signals. Many of them were trained veterans. They were not marching for attention. They were marching for justice.

Standing in their way was Sheriff Don Chafin, a man bought and paid for by the coal companies. Chafin had fortified Blair Mountain, a 25-mile stretch of ridgeline between the miners and the Logan County coalfields. He had 2,000 men, most of them deputized by the coal operators, armed with machine guns, rifles, and private planes.

That’s right. The coal companies had aircraft. And they were ready to use them.

What followed was the largest armed labor uprising in American history. And one of the largest domestic insurrections since the Civil War. The Battle of Blair Mountain had begun.

August 25, 1921. The first shots of the Battle of Blair Mountain were fired.

The terrain was brutal—dense forest, steep ridges, narrow hollows. But the miners knew it. Many of them had grown up in those mountains. They approached Blair Mountain from multiple angles, attempting to flank Chafin’s forces. Over the next ten days, the miners engaged in full-scale warfare with the anti-union forces.

And this wasn’t sporadic gunfire. This was sustained, strategic combat.

Chafin’s men used machine gun emplacements to hold key ridgelines. They had high ground and better communication. The miners dug trenches, used scouts, and even blew up trees with dynamite to create barriers.

Then came the planes.

The coal companies hired private pilots to drop homemade bombs on the miners. These included tear gas and pipe bombs made from scrap metal and explosives. At least one of the bombs was recovered later, undetonated. It was a legitimate aerial weapon—on American soil, dropped by civilians on fellow citizens.

Meanwhile, the miners held their ground. Some retreated and regrouped. Others advanced. In some places, the fighting was hand-to-hand. In others, it was long-range sniper fire.

Estimates suggest that over one million rounds of ammunition were fired during the battle.

And then the federal government got involved.

President Warren G. Harding, under pressure from coal interests and fearing open rebellion, ordered the deployment of federal troops. 2,100 U.S. Army soldiers were sent into the region, along with planes and military advisors.

And when the miners saw the U.S. Army arriving—they stopped.

Most of them were veterans. They didn’t want to fight against their own military. They respected the flag, even as they were being trampled by corporations. Within days, the miners laid down their arms and began returning home.

The final body count is still debated. Officially, about 16 men were killed. But historians now believe the number may be much higher—possibly 50 to 100 fatalities, with hundreds more wounded.

In the aftermath, 985 miners were indicted for crimes including murder, treason, and insurrection. Many were imprisoned. Some were acquitted. Over the next few years, the UMWA lost most of its foothold in southern West Virginia.

The coal companies had won.

The union wouldn’t recover in the region until the 1930s, when New Deal legislation finally gave workers stronger protections. But even then, the Battle of Blair Mountain was largely left out of the story. It wasn’t taught in schools. It wasn’t in textbooks. For decades, it was a shadow—a whispered piece of labor history.

But it didn’t disappear.

In the 1990s, a group of historians and locals began fighting to have Blair Mountain recognized as a historical landmark. Archaeologists found bullets, weapon fragments, and trench systems along the ridges. It proved that the battle was real, extensive, and worth remembering.

In 2009, the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Two years later, it was delisted—after lobbying from coal companies who wanted to mine the mountain for its remaining coal. Activists fought back. Lawsuits were filed. And finally, in 2018, Blair Mountain was re-listed, officially protected as a historic battlefield.

Today, you can hike parts of it. You can still see remnants of trenches. You can walk where miners marched. There’s even a mural downtown showing Sid Hatfield—the Hatfield from Matewan—defying the Baldwin–Felts agents.

And maybe the most surreal part of this entire story? There are still active battles being fought over workers’ rights in the same region. Coal jobs have declined, but poverty remains. And many of the same economic pressures—corporate control, worker exploitation, suppressed wages—still define the landscape.

So what’s the lesson?

It’s not that violence solves labor disputes. It’s that people will only endure injustice for so long before they fight back. And when the law, the courts, and the corporations are all aligned against them, sometimes their only option is to rise up. The Battle of Blair Mountain wasn’t a tragedy. It was a stand. And for a moment—just a moment—thousands of everyday Americans reminded the country that justice isn’t something you’re handed. It’s something you fight for. The Internet Says It’s True.

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