OH HEY LOOK MY FAVORITE HISTORY TOPIC
Incidentally, theres a little bit of misinformation on the Matewan Massacre, though the gist of it is overall right. No judge was involved in the review of the warrant; Mayor Testerman was the one who said “this warrant is bogus!” and prompted the gunfight. No one knows who actually started shooting first, and only 7 Baldwin-Felts were killed (13 was the number they started with). They had actually offered both Sid and Mayor Testerman like, really huge bribes to allow them to install machine guns on the roofs of buildings throughout the town. Shady as fuck. Sid and Testerman both refused, which is kinda why the Baldwin-Felts guys disliked them to start with.
Sid (plus 17 others) charged for murder, but all were acquitted. This trial was really in the national spotlight, and Sid was a bit of a celebrity because he posed for pictures and answered questions with a lot of people. but of course the Baldwin-Felts hated him and had a very personal vendetta.
Edward Chambers wasn’t involved in the Matewan Massacre; he and Sid were going to stand trial for an unrelated incident involving them allegedly exploding a coal tipple in Welch, WV. They didn’t even make it inside the courthouse. They were shot to death on the steps. Sid was hit 3 or 4 times in his chest and died instantly, but his friend Ed was initially hit non-fatally. A Baldwin-Felts detective shot him in the head was his wife tried to defend him. And heres the real kicker: None of the Baldwin-Felts detectives was ever convicted of Hatfield’s assassination. They claimed they were acting in “self-defense”.
Also, if you’ve never heard of the Battle of Blair Mountain: 10,000-13,000 armed coal miners marched into Logan County, West Virginia, against 3,000 armed policemen, strikebreakers, and Baldwin-Felts detectives. The miners gathered for days beforehand, with a group from Northern West Virginia actually commandeering a freight train and renaming it the Blue Steel Special to get themselves to the group.
Here’s the EXTRA fucked up part, which occurred about 2 days after the fighting had started and which im gonna copypaste from the wiki: “ After a long meeting in the town of Madison, the seat of Boone County, agreements were made convincing the miners to return home. However, the struggle was far from over. After spending days to assemble his private army, Chafin was not going to be denied his battle to end union attempts at organizing Logan County coal mines. Within hours of the Madison decision, rumors abounded that Sheriff Chafin’s men had shot union sympathizers in the town of Sharples, West Virginia, just north of Blair Mountain—and that families had been caught in crossfire during the skirmishes. Infuriated, the miners turned back towards Blair Mountain, many traveling in other stolen and commandeered trains. “
They were gonna quit. The miners were gonna say “okay, you win, don’t kill any more of us.” and they fuckin killed em. So they turned their asses around and said “Actually fuck you”.
And hey the army wasn’t the ones dropping the bombs, the miners surrendered and retreated when the federal troops got there because they realized that if they didn’t that their own gov would slaughter them. Nah it was private planes that were hired to drop a combo of leftover gas and explosive bombs from WW1 plus a bunch of homemade bombs on the miners. Did those guys ever get arrested? no.
This went on for 8 FUCKIN DAYS MY DUDES before the army came in this was the LARGEST ARMED UPRISING IN US HISTORY OUTSIDE OF THE GOD DAMN CIVIL WAR AND ITS NOT EVEN A SHITTING FOOTNOTE IN 95% OF US HISTORY TEXTBOOKS
10,000 FUCKING COAL MINERS FOUGHT AN 8-DAY BATTLE AGAINST A 3,000-STRONG PRIVATE ARMED FORCE SUPPORTED FINANCIALLY BY THE OWNERS OF THE COAL MINES AND NO HISTORY BOOK YOU’LL FIND IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL WILL DEVOTE MORE THAN A SENTENCE TO IT WHAT THE FUCK