Synopses & Reviews
On a Dreary Morning in May of 1920 Seven Men Carrying Winchesters and pistols boarded the Norfolk and Western's No. 29 at Bluefield, West Virginia, bound for the little mining town of Matewan on the Kentucky border. All were hirelings of the Baldwin-Felts detective agency, personally selected by their boss, Tom Felts. Nearly all have been tried and can be relied on, Tom Felts had written to his brother, Albert, who was already posted in Matewan. Coal was big business, but now it was in big trouble. It was this crisis that called the Baldwin-Felts agents to Matewan. Baldwin-Felts prospered by doing the bidding of the coal companies of West Virginia, serving more or less as their private police force. Tom Felts was sending these men to Matewan, in Mingo County, because there, as in the rest of southern West Virginia, the coal companies, whose output fueled the national economy, and the United Mine Workers of America, the nation's most powerful labor union, were at each other's throats.
Synopsis
The Battle of Blair Mountain covers a profoundly significant but long-neglected slice of American history - the largest armed uprising on American soil since the Civil War. In 1921, some 10,000 West Virginia coal miners, outraged over years of brutality and lawless exploitation, picked up their Winchesters and marched against their tormentors, the powerful mine owners who ruled their corrupt state. For ten days the miners fought a pitched battle against an opposing legion of deputies, state police, and makeshift militia. Only the intervention of a federal expeditionary force, spearheaded by a bomber squadron commanded by General Billy Mitchell, ended this undeclared civil war and forced the miners to throw down their arms. The significance of this episode reaches beyond the annals of labor history. Indeed, it is a saga of the conflicting political, economic and cultural forces that shaped the power structure of 20th century America.
Synopsis
In 1921, some 10,000 West Virginia coal miners-- outraged over years of brutality and exploitation-- picked up their Winchesters and marched against their tormentors, the powerful mine owners who ruled their corrupt state. For ten days the miners fought a pitched battle against an opposing legion of deputies, state police, and makeshift militia. Only the intervention of a Federal expeditionary force ended this undeclared war. In The Battle of Blair Mountain, Robert Shogan shows this long-neglected slice of American history to be a saga of the conflicting political, economic, and cultural forces that shaped the power structure of twentieth-century America.
Synopsis
This long-neglected slice of American history is a saga of the conflicting political, economic, and cultural forces that shaped the power structure of twentieth-century America.
About the Author
Robert Shogan has spent more than thirty years covering the political scene in Washington as national political correspondent for Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times. He is currently Adjunct Professor of Government at the Center for Study of American Government of Johns Hopkins University. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.