Talk:Battle of Blair Mountain/Archive 1

Sid Hatfield
This is possibly a minor detail in comparison to some of the other material here, but "the murder of Sid Hatfield, police chief of Matewan, on the steps of the McDowell County courthouse in July 1921 by alleged company goons" is factually wrong on two counts.

Smilin' Sid wasn't "murdered." He was assassinated in retaliation for his attempt the previous month to arrest hired mercenaries of the Baldwin-Phelps Security Company on charges of murder during the winter of 1921. He was gunned down in broad daylight, in front of scores of witnesses, by Baldwin-Phelps men. The people in Matewan still remember, even if the rest of the country doesn't. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.41.40.24 (talk • contribs) 01:40, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Redneck War
I have removed the following from the lede, and bring it here for discussion:


 * The battle was the final act in a series of violent clashes that have also been termed the Redneck War, from the color of bandannas worn by the miners around their necks for friend-or-foe identification, a war some claim was the impetus of the common usage of the original Scottish term redneck in the vernacular of the United States.

I cannot find a reputable source for this claim, and it seems somewhat reaching. Can someone find a source for this? --- RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive'  02:36, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

On an ETSU radio show, someone (I missed the names) said the term "Red Neck army" was used by a New York Times reporter. Someone with access to the NYT archive could find such an article, likely in 1921. A more recent NYT piece about the mountain topping that threatens to destroy Blair Mountain is at http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/national/15blair.html. Also, http://www.wvculture.org/hiStory/minewars.html has a list of references that might help. 69.27.92.150 (talk) 18:11, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Corrections
Incorrect phrases: First, it wasn't the Baldwin-PHELPS detective Agency, it was the Baldwin-FELTS Detective Agency. I know. My last name is Baldwin and I had many relatives in the Battle of Blair Mountain. My great-uncle married a woman whose maiden name was Phelps from the Lake/Hewitts Creek area. There was no connection between Phelps and Felts. The 'Felts' in the Baldwin-Felts detective agaency was named after Albert Felts and probably his brother Lee Felts. These two are mentioned in the battle of Matewan, listed in wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Matewan

Secondly, you called this the "redneck War.' This was known as 'The Thug and Redneck War.' You left out part of the phrase. This was significant because the "Thugs" were detectives hired by the coal companies in the area.

Thirdly, the "redneck" came from those who supported the miners in the Battle for Blair Mountain wearing a red bandana around their neck. I know this because my grandparents used the red bandana from my grandfather's neck as a diaper for my aunt as a diaper when they were evacuated and relocated to a tent in Jeffrey, West Virginia during the uprising. 204.111.64.57 (talk) 02:16, 17 October 2011 (UTC)calicomist


 * Agree about Felts, for certain -- but I don't see any reference to "Phelps" or to "redneck" anywhere in the article -- where are you looking? Antandrus (talk) 02:21, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Bounty
I'm offering a bounty (payable as a donation to the Wikimedia Foundation) for improvements to this article. £15 for bringing it up to B-class, as assessed by one of the associated Wikiprojects, another £40 to get it to Good Article status, and another £100 to get it to Featured Article. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 16:16, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I've gone through and converted your refs to harvard style, which is the preferred form of citation in GAN and FAC reviews; in addition, I corrected most of your cites to shortened footnotes (the "sfn" template), which is what you should use for your citation from here on out, if you're citing to a book or journal article more than once in an article. There are a couple of things I see which you need to do:
 * Add page references for your Corbin 1998 cites
 * You need to put the Ayers and Corbin 1982 references in here; I did some digging and can't figure out what works those might represent.
 * Each paragraph needs at least one citation to the source material. If you cite to a source you've already cited, all you have to do is copy/paste the "sfn" template and change the "p=" number to reflect what page it's on.  The sfn template is a real lifesaver for citation, and it makes it so that you can click on the cite in your footnotes, and it will take you to the exact book referenced.  Once you make sure each paragraph is cited, this should be enough to get you to at least B-level (if it gets to B, no bounty is needed; just give me a shout-out on my talk page to let me know if everything turned out well).  This is about all I can help with at this point, but best of luck!  Cdtew  (talk) 20:05, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Casualties
The West Virginia State Archives only lists four Deputies and "at least" twelve miners as casualties. What are the references for the 50-100 claomed here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.81.123.114 (talk) 15:18, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Statistics on the number of deaths: All sources I have read admit that the number of deaths are not clear. http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh50-1.html lists the number as "at least 4", http://www.glendale.edu/chaparral/apr05/blair.htm states: ". The precise death toll was never established, but estimates range from fewer than twenty to more than fifty." http://blueridgecountry.com/people/bill-blizzard-blair-mountain.html explains: "The official casualties were 16 killed, but the actual number may have been far higher. No one knows. Both sides kept their casualties secret.Much remains unknown about the Battle of Blair Mountain – reporters having been largely barred from the battlefield; and afterwards, the miners observed a permanent code of silence to protect their leaders from prosecution"  Even the number of marchers varies from account to account with a low of 1,000 and a high projection at 20,000. http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/532 Puts the situation clearly:  "Like other statistics in this event, the exact numbers of killed and wounded are mere conjecture." I would love to see an accurate number for the casualties on each side, but at this point I'm not sure it exists. --glassjar99 (talk) 16:18, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Of the four deputies, one died of a heart attack and three were murdered in cold blood after being captured. The number of union miners killed should be well documented, but the questions of when and under what circumstances they were killed is murky - several pro-union miners were killed during the march, but prior to the battle. Why would anyone keep the casualties secret? The US Senate hearing provided detail and would be a useful source: http://books.google.com/books?id=EQQ9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=Committee+on+Education+and+Labor+West+Virginia+Coal+Fields&source=bl&ots=TfoNaVkChO&sig=TC6Zn9-XInmn4W-rVlzGYx_Zy_0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7VlWU6PlHdWyyASFq4CQBA&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=killed%20blair&f=false — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nothing Extra (talk • contribs) 12:06, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

not true
"It was the only example of Air Power being used by the federal government against US citizens."

At least there is the instance of Air National Guard units bombed and strafed US citizens in Puerto Rico. --Cerejota (talk) 04:02, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


 * If you are referring to this incident, it was an accidental bombing, unlike Blair mountain, which was purposeful. Jwalte04 (talk) 17:24, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


 * No, I am referring to events during the 1950 Nationalist Uprising, specifically the The Jayuya Uprising. The US National Guard attacked, using air and artillery assets, including bombing one school that was being used as a bivouac by the insurgents.


 * "Life" magazine for November 13, 1950 has full coverage, as did the press of the time, as this uprising included an attempt to kill Truman. It is well documented, notable, and true.


 * While Puerto Rico is just a territory, all Puerto Ricans are born full US citizens since 1917. So what this article says is at best original research, and at worse not verifiable. I suggest we remove the assertion. Thanks! --Cerejota (talk) 12:24, 20 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I've reworded it from "the only example" to "a rare example" (and moved that particular phrase for added clarity). --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 17:20, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, the Air Corps did not actually drop any bombs on the miners. The bombs that were dropped came from private planes hired out by Don Chafin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.226.234.230 (talk) 18:49, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Bloated 'background'
The 'Background' section of this article seems bloated and recounts in near heavy detail the same information that can be found in the article for the Matewan Massacre. It may be more useful/clear to have a shorter background with links to those key events as opposed to recounting them in here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.56.223.3 (talk) 21:53, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I moved the background section to the "coal wars" wiki page because its a really great overview of coal wars that I have not seen anywhere else. Im going to do some minor edits on the other page to make it slightly less WVA centric and then chop out the extra stuff on the blair mountain page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.151.72.162 (talk) 17:15, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Tone
This article is not written with a disinterested tone and requires significant rewriting. There is clearly an opinion behind it e.g. "oppressive state-sanctioned system," or "The Battle of Blair Mountain was the result of economic exploitation of workers..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.244.178.147 (talk) 01:36, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I was struck by the same items (among others). The POV issue is pretty blatant, and unnecessary given the facts of this event.72.48.203.197 (talk) 04:41, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Get a life... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.244.86.37 (talk) 17:06, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

This all just reeks of axes ground down to a nub. Can't we all admit that, the poorest of poor people's backs were flat against a wall. Can we not agree that the jails and saloons were cleaned out so the "detectives" lines could be held. I'm very sad to admit that, at this point, there is no "fact" left in this argument. An argument that should be historical canon at this point but, very much to our detriment, keeps serving a side. I digress: the truth about the "battle" of Blair Mountain is completely lost to time. I can only rely on my family's take on it, handed down now to a fifth generation UMWA coal miner, unemployed of course, of the sheer confusion and utter fear laying in the hollers like the pristine fog being burnt off by a sunup of magnificent clarity. (These are all quotes the best I can remember them from my papaw) "Well, ya see, it wasn't very good to be one of the first men up Buffalo Creek with a union card. It garnered a lot more attention than any one man would have wanted or asked for. Honestly, the first thing we done was take the wheels off the car and burry them in an unmarked spot on the property. Next we really did leave town. You could grand stand all you wanted while the onlookers were yelping but those who bucked the system too much wound up with their throat cut in a boiler in the train yard at Logan. When names started being named and men started gathering, as lines looking out across no mans land, no one wanted to fire the first shot. Fortunately, no one wanted to be the one(s) who brought all that horror back here(WWI). As poor and as desperate for merely the basic necessities of life that most everyone were, they powers that be still couldn't provoke the behavior like what had been done to us. After the Feds were called to make their showing in their doughboy outfits, a overwhelming portion of the minors "surrendered". Gave in or registered their weapons rather than fire on the uniform or flag they had just came home from defending at the gravest of costs. The coal companies had their headlines to spin and the labor forces had their crocodile tears to spray and all was right in the fiefdom of West Virginia. A working man has never had a shoulder to lean on, or a cause to believe in. It was all a big flimflam. A pageant, run amuck by the biggest crybaby in the room."

This (more or less) coming from two different sides of my family (both UMWA) solidified in my mind that, indeed, history is written by the conquerors. We must, at least, desire in hindsight, who is who, and who... is you?

What fantasy will we coon up next?

Yours Truely, 5000 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.80.124.37 (talk) 07:15, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

From the Talk Page there seems to be a dispute over the history of Blair Mountain, one side (UMWA) suggesting the facts have been exaggerated, the other side (mine workers) saying it is not. I know little about the Blair Mountain battle but I have spent four years in research on the mine wars and I have strong feelings about that part of the mine war story. My grandfather, Taylor Hammond, was killed in the Gardner Mine tent city in retaliation to his union activities, on September 20, 1920. The mine company, Superior-Thacker, was always suspected of his death but it was never investigated. He was riding out of the mine shaft in a motorized carrier that had a dozen men on board. A 2300 volt live - and bare - wire dropped into the doorway just as he passed through. No one else was hurt. Taylor Hammond, and his fellow miners worked 12-hour days for the equivalent of less than $3.00 of company money, while their wives spent $4.00 to $5.00 a day at the company store just to feed and provide medicine for the children. Every day put them farther behind. There were no schools in the camp and no churches. The children were therefore predestined to also work in the mines. What else could they do for a living? The tents had no running water, no heat nor toilet. My mother's stories about her life there in that tent city will break the hardest heart. Most city and state officials turned their backs on those conditions because of mine company threats to leave the state taking the revenue with them. I will gladly sign my name and you can delete it if you choose. Claude L Chafin Clchafin (talk) 19:34, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Name
The 1877 national railroad strike was the largest armed labor conflict in US History, - — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.112.208.136 (talk • contribs) 21:26, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

The article, as currently written is misleading. Whatever the "Battle of Blair Mountain" may be, it clearly NOT "the largest armed conflict in American history." I am rewording it to "one of the largest riots in American history." While 'riot' may not be the most apropiate word, it is probably better than 'armed conflict' which suggests an actual war rather than a clash between armed civilians and police. Feel free to reverse this change, as I must confess my knowledge of the incident to be scant at best.


 * Now changed to "one of the largest armed uprisings", and considerably expanded. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 16:04, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your work on this OTB. Aman 9/7/06

Still wrong. The Whiskey Rebellion was at least as large... Also, no where near as large as the nationwide race riots following the Martin Luther King assassination I would imagine.


 * The current version makes it clear that it's only the largest "in labor history", not the largest of all. Neither of those examples are labor/union-related. I think the wording works OK, though more input might be good. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 09:03, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I edited it to the largest "labor" uprising and the largest "organized armed uprising" since the civil war. They were not in rebellion per se and the race riots of the 60's are clearly a larger uprising (I'm not too sure on armed).

Edited it to say "one of the largest, organized, and well-armed uprisings." This seemed like the best course of action. It may be settling but hopefully it resolves the dispute. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.229.255.21 (talk) 13:55, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

The American Experience episode "The Mine Wars" characterized it as the "largest armed insurrection since the Civil War ..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.152.131.231 (talk) 06:09, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Sloppy wording
"Miners in the scores and hundreds were arrested without habeas corpus and other basic legal rights" is not correct. "Scores and hundreds" is too vague and inconsistent. habeas corpus is irrelevant to arrests, and what does "other basic legal rights" mean?Royalcourtier (talk) 18:34, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Blair Mountain.
I strongly suggest you visit the old County Courthouse in Summersville West virginia. A LARGE photo of a crashed Martin MB 1 bomber used in this incident, and apparently downed by gun fire from the ground, is on display there. Large enough for a mobile phone to capture, if I recall. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CliffDeal (talk • contribs) 14:23, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Resources for Battle of Blair Mountain
Jada Thacker's "Dissecting American History" spends more time on this struggle than any other book called "American History". (there are also numerous other articles and links online;http://www.pawv.org/news/blairhist.htm) The Labor Struggles in his book on American History can be found on pages 276 - 282. He details the struggle of several events at that time.

I know several comments state that the article is NOT neutral yet most posts are about factual differences or errors; however the issue of neutrality to the "tone" is not correct. The struggle was about the company store, low wages, living conditions (lack of facilities, housing outside of the mines for families) as well as the conditions of the job itself. Management of Railroad and Mines have a detailed history in the United States of being ruthless. Regarding management being portrayed as ruthless, the strike breakers as goons, thugs etc., leading to a "tone" of bias, these are not only accurate portrayals but the terminology is consistent with the vernacular of the time. The article is NOT stating that owning a mine is a bad thing, or capitalism is bad. They are simply stating the facts around the one battle that the US army statistics at the time stated involved around 20,000 combatants. (DAH Jada Thacker, http://www.pawv.org/news/blairhist.htm estimate between 7500 - 10,000 strikers and supporters).

It is trivial to state comparative events only to disparage the fight between workers and management. The Lattimer Massacre, the Ludlow Massacre, the Colorado Coalfield War, the Matewan shootout, and the Battle of Blair Mountain are but a few examples of a long history of bloodshed and slave-wage worker oppression. The term oppression is justified by the measure of working wages NOT meeting the price of food and housing set by the company that pays your wages, pushing the workers into cyclical debt. The other citations (claiming NOT neutral) of other struggles are either NOT related to labor (Slave revolts), OR simply disputing it on sheer numbers, which are difficult at best to corroborate.

ALSO, reference to the "American Civil War" of 1861 - 1865 should NOT be continued. It is a fundamentally misuse of the word Civil and understanding of the conflict. Many sites have the phrase "largest insurrection since the American Civil War" ; there are many others! "War Between the States"; is probably the most Neutral way to phrase the event.

The term "civil war" refers to a conflict where two parties struggle militarily over control of the government. (Russian Civil War is good example, struggle in 1850 between north and south Kansas is another). The South wanted to form a NEW government; kind of what America did when breaking with England. Like the Southern Confederacy in 1861-1865, we were NOT trying to run the English government different than the system that existed at the time, we wanted to leave and form our own system. Multimille (talk) 15:20, 15 May 2016 (UTC)multimille(5-15-2016)

POV tag
Unless a specific reason and/or discussion is given for restoring the POV tag, it doesn't belong. They aren't designed to be permanent, nor are they a substitute for discussion. Farmer Brown (talk) 00:36, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree. As per Help:Maintenance template removal, "Some neutrality tags such as Conflict of Interest (COI) and Neutral point of view (POV) require that the tagging editor initiate a dialog (generally on the article's talk page), to sustain their placement. If the tagging editor failed to do so, or the discussion is dormant, the template can be removed."
 * As a simple reading of this talk page will show, the point has been discussed, and hardly seems dormant. Anmccaff (talk) 19:25, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Then explain the points that need fixing so they can be addressed. A couple of offhand comments are not a discussion, they are just comments.  Since you put it back, the burden is on you to explain specifically what is not neutral, so each point can be discussed or simply fixed individually.  Otherwise, the tag will be removed per my prior reasoning.  Farmer Brown (talk) 12:06, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Regardless of the rights and wrongs of how the POV tag was added, there clearly were a couple of neutrality issues, identified above under the headings "Tone" and "Sloppy wording". I've modified the specific points identified. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 15:24, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Any further issues or shall I remove the POV tag? (I'll give it a couple of weeks) --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 16:43, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * As you clearly were neutral in the matter, I'm happy to defer to your judgement. Farmer Brown (talk) 20:39, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * A great many further issues. Don't remove it. Anmccaff (talk) 15:43, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
 * If you are going to protest the removal of a POV tag, you need to be specific. The tag isn't meant to be a permanent thing.  Get specific if you are going to protest, or it is meaningless.  Farmer Brown (talk) 16:59, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
 * If you look at the various points marked as "dubious" in the article, I think they give a good start in listing some of the POV slants. In the meantime, I'd request that you replace the POV hat.  17:25, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Please see Template:Dubious for the proper use of the dubious tag. None of the "discuss" links go anywhere because you haven't created the proper talk page sections. Bradv 17:32, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
 * One point - the use of section links is strongly recommended, but not required; the template article even gives explicit examples of tags without them. Dunno is "proper" is the right word there, although I suppose it's _generally_ best practice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anmccaff (talk • contribs) 20:20, July 29, 2016‎


 * I would also note that I didn't remove the tag, and "dubious" is not exactly the same as a POV issue. This is why we have different tags, they mean different things.  You can be 100% accurate and have a POV issue by only showing one side of the issue, for instance. You can be balanced with no neutrality issues but have some facts that are dubious.  Again, they don't mean the same thing. Farmer Brown (talk) 20:09, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
 * No disagreement with either point in themselves, but I think you can also see where the particular points noted show areas where a POV slant might lie. Yes, I realize that you did not remove the tag, but you have certainly campaigned for it above, no?  Anmccaff (talk) 20:20, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
 * That doesn't obligate me to reinsert it, even if I agreed with him. My main argument has been to get him to specifically say what he thinks is a POV issue.  You can't find consensus if you can't define what it is you find fault with.  Adding dubious tags is not a substitute for actual discussion.  It is the same as talking AT someone instead of talking WITH them.  Farmer Brown (talk) 21:03, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Chafin not "private."
Chafin's force appears to have been legally constituted as a county posse. (Whether this was a good idea or not is obviously another question.)  Anmccaff (talk) 19:43, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I probably don't understand the complexities of this, but why can't you just fix it? Bradv  19:57, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Waiting on references, for one thing; I am very uncomfortable with the research-by-Google-snippet school of scholarship. Anmccaff (talk) 20:23, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Needs a lead in
The article just starts with some detectives showing up, wanting to set up machine guns on the roofs of the buildings, going and evicting some poor innocent women and children from company property, then killing a Sheriff...we need some background on this all. Why are the detectives there? Why do they want to evict the people? What is "company property" vs the rest of the town? Why did they want machine guns? Why is there friction between the company and the miners? You need an introduction to the story, or it makes no sense to the reader. These events didn't just happen spontaneously. AnnaGoFast (talk) 23:47, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

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Category:United States military killing of American civilians
During the Battle of Blair Mountain did the United States military kill any American civilians? If so, a citation should be added to the article and the following +cat should be added to the article: Category:United States military killing of American civilians. Thank you. IQ125 (talk) 16:41, 3 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree. I also wonder why there is no mention anywhere in this article of this incident regarding this being one of the (relatively) few violations the Posse Comitatus act of 1878 by the federal government. Nhzero (talk) 14:17, 11 April 2022 (UTC)