Book Review - “Rednecks”

As we prepare to celebrate Labor Day (Monday, September 1, this year), I’ll share this review of a book that resides in the Downieville Library. The book is entitled Rednecks, by Taylor Brown, and was published in 2024. It is a book of historical fiction, based on the events leading up, and including, the Battle of Blair Mountain, which took place from August 25 to September 2, 1921, in Logan County, West Virginia. The battle, which was the largest battle on United States soil since the Civil War, was part of the much larger Coal Wars.

First, a word about the book’s title. In his “Author’s Note” at the end of the book, Brown quotes from the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum: “Although the term ‘redneck’ predates the Mine Wars era, this period is often understood as the birth of the term as slang in America. It was originally used in the popular media to denigrate an Appalachian working class uprising as backward, uneducated, and dangerous, and the stereotype and negative use of the term persists today.” As readers of the book will discover, the term “redneck” referred to the red bandanas that the miners wore around their necks, to distinguish themselves from members of the private army hired by the mine owners.

While several characters in the book are fictional — although, in several instances, based on actual persons — there are historical figures present, including Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, Matewan Police Chief Sid Hatfield, Matewan Mayor Cabell Testerman, Albert and Lee and Thomas Felts (of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency), West Virginia Governor Ephraim Morgan, Logan County Sheriff Don Chafin, Bill Blizzard, and President Warren G. Harding.

The story of the battle begins years previously, with the founding in 1890 of the United Mine Workers Union, which was focused on coal miners. Mine owners in Mingo County, West Virginia, and the surrounding areas would hire only non-union workers, and fired any worker even suspected of advocating for union membership, plus evicting them from the company-owned homes. Evicted workers and their families were then forced to live in tent colonies along the Tug Fork River — while rows of company houses were boarded up.

The book begins with the Matewan Massacre, when members of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, working on behalf of the coal mine owners, arrived in Matewan to arrest Police Chief Sid Hatfield. The agency had already been engaged in the task of evicting miners and their families from company housing, and then following that up with destroying the tent colonies. In Matewan, a gun battle ensued, in which ten men were killed, including the mayor and one of the Felt brothers. For the miners, this was the first setback for the Baldwin-Felts, and thus held special significance for the miners. Following this battle, West Virginia state police attacked the Lick Creek tent colony, shooting and arresting miners, destroying their tents, and evicting their families.

The situation continued to deteriorate — including the murder of Police Chief Hatfield by the Baldwin-Felts — until the miners finally took up arms. The mine owners appealed to President Harding, who threatened to send in federal troops and Army bombers. All of it finally led to the Battle of Blair Mountain, where the mine owners “troops” held the higher ground, had better weaponry, and utilized private planes to drop homemade bombs, as well as poison gas and explosive bombs left over from World War I, on the miners. Governor Morgan appointed a colonel of the West Virginia National Guard to command the government and private forces confronting the miners. In the ensuing battle, which involved about 10,000 miners, 3,000 members of the detective agency, sheriff’s department, and state police, and 27,000 members of the National Guard, casualties came to 50-100 miners killed, 30 of the detectives, et al, killed, and 4 members of the National Guard killed. Indeed, when the federal troops arrived, the miners, many of whom were themselves veterans of WWI, were unwilling to fire on the U.S. troops. The leaders of the miners then began sending the miners home. However, 985 of them were later indicted on a multitude of charges. The majority were acquitted by sympathetic juries, others were imprisoned for up to four years, with the last being paroled in 1925.

In the short term, the battle was an overwhelming victory for the coal industry owners. However, in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Industrial Recovery Act into law, as part of the New Deal legislation, guaranteeing the right of workers to join labor unions of their choosing. We now observe Labor Day in celebration of all workers — and their rights to fair and just working conditions.