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The following is a footnote to
the Battle of Blair Mountain recounted in last month's issue.
The John
Sayles movie
Matewan ends
with the historical gunfight between the representatives of the Stone
Mountain Mining Company (the hired guns of the Baldwin-Felts Detective
Agency) versus the Mayor, the Chief of Police, and assorted citizens
of the town of Matewan who were opposing the illegal evictions of
striking workers from rentals owned by the Mining Company but which
were within the "city" limits of the town.
When the shooting
ended, two miners and seven detectives including Albert and Lee Felts
were dead. The mayor, Cabell Testerman, whose last words were, "Why did
they shoot me?...I can't see why they shot me," would shortly die.
The mining company
and Thomas Felts, understandably grieving for his two dead brothers,
sought swift retribution even though there was good reason to think that
the evictions leading up to the incident were illegal and that bribes
had been paid to Mingo County and Matewan officials to overlook the
niceties of the law.
Tom Felts' lust for
vengeance would would rank right up there with another local but much
better known vendetta—the one between the Hatfields and McCoys.
West Virginia was
conflicted at this time: some citizens sympathized with the operators
and the mining interests while others sympathized with the miners and
the union movement. The mood varied from town to town and county to
county. A grand jury, sensitive to the interests of the various
factions, decided on a split decision—"they handed down indictments
against Sid Hatfield and twenty-two miners for conspiring to murder the
detectives." This suited the operators and Tom Felts; however, "they
indicted four of the detectives who survived the gun battle for the
murder of Cabell Testerman and the two miners," an action meant to
please the miners. The four detectives were scheduled for trial in a
sympathetic Greenbriar County where miners were few and accordingly they
were acquitted. Hatfield and the miners were also acquitted by a
sympathetic jury in Mingo County, where Hatfield was quoted as saying,
"It is good to know you have so many friends."
However, Tom Felts
and the government would not be satisfied with the jury verdicts, and
later a coal company lawyer named S.B. Avis would charge Sid Hatfield,
along with thirty miners, with a conspiracy charge linked to one of the
many violent outbreaks which marked the Battle of Blair Mountain. The
trial would be held in McDowell County, a coal company stronghold which
clearly favored the operators interests.
Sid Hatfield had
his misgivings, saying that if he went to McDowell County, there was a
good chance he would never come back. Ironically, the sheriff of
McDowell County was also a Hatfield, but William Hatfield was no friend
of Sid's. He promised Sid's wife that he would be safe during the
trial, and he told a reporter, "there isn't going to be any
trouble...We'll see to that." On the day of the trial, however, William
had left the county to "take the waters" at a resort in Virginia.
As Sid Hatfield,
his wife, and some companions approached the courthouse, Charles Lively
and some other Baldwin-Felts agents were waiting at the top of the
steps. When the unsuspecting Hatfield reached the top of the steps,
they opened fire. Hit four times, Sid Hatfield fell dead at the
courthouse door.
Mingo County gave
Sid Hatfield a great send off; the funeral was attended by thousands of
miners. Lively and the Baldwin-felts agents claimed that the shooting
was "a case self-defense, pure and simple," and it was never
prosecuted. Tom Felts had his revenge.&
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