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Thunder In the Mountains: The West Virginia Mine War, 1920-21
The West Virginia mine war of 1920-21, a major civil insurrection of unusual brutality on both sides, even by the standards of the coal fields, involved thousands of union and nonunion miners, state and private police, militia, and federal troops. Before it was over, three West Virginia counties were in open rebellion, much of the state was under military rule, and bombers of the U.S. Army Air Corps had been dispatched against striking miners.
The origins of this civil war were in the Draconian rule of the coal companies over the fiercely proud miners of Appalachia. It began in the small railroad town of Matewan when Mayor C. C. Testerman and Police Chief Sid Hatfield sided with striking miners against agents of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, who attempted to evict the miners from company-owned housing. During a street battle, Mayor Testerman, seven Baldwin-Felts agents, and two miners were shot to death.
Hatfield became a folk hero to Appalachia. But he, like Testerman, was to be a martyr. The next summer, Baldwin-Felts agents assassinated him and his best friend, Ed Chambers, as their wives watched, on the steps of the courthouse in Welch, accelerating the miners’ rebellion into open warfare.
Much neglected in historical accounts, Thunder in the Mountains is the only available book-length account of the crisis in American industrial relations and governance that occured during the West Virginia mine war of 1920-21.
The origins of this civil war were in the Draconian rule of the coal companies over the fiercely proud miners of Appalachia. It began in the small railroad town of Matewan when Mayor C. C. Testerman and Police Chief Sid Hatfield sided with striking miners against agents of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, who attempted to evict the miners from company-owned housing. During a street battle, Mayor Testerman, seven Baldwin-Felts agents, and two miners were shot to death.
Hatfield became a folk hero to Appalachia. But he, like Testerman, was to be a martyr. The next summer, Baldwin-Felts agents assassinated him and his best friend, Ed Chambers, as their wives watched, on the steps of the courthouse in Welch, accelerating the miners’ rebellion into open warfare.
Much neglected in historical accounts, Thunder in the Mountains is the only available book-length account of the crisis in American industrial relations and governance that occured during the West Virginia mine war of 1920-21.
195 pages, Paperback
First published June 15, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
September 15, 2023
A bit of American history I'd never heard of and worth is knowing. This book inspired me to check out the movie: Matewan, and the docuseries: American Experience: The Mine Wars. The movie of course doesn't do it justice. How could it is such a short amount of time?
October 5, 2021
A short but detailed account of the Battle of Blair Mountain and the events leading up to it. For anyone interested on the subject I'd recommend this book first.
February 11, 2022
Really enjoyed this. Read more like a novel than a history book which was both a strength and a weakness for me. An important series of events in West Virginian and American history. Would recommend but to a very niche group of readers.
May 1, 2025
Superbly well researched detailing of the "Matewan Massacre" and the subsequent "Battle of Blair Mountain". The earlier parts, revolving around the charismatic Sid Hatfield, held the attention best, whereas the latter stages were dryer, and the ending was anticlimactic/unsatisfying (which is not a criticism because this is non-fiction and not a novel!). Some great photos, and a tremendous short intro from John Sayles, so all round a fitting record of important events.
January 16, 2018
This book wasn't well written but it does explain the main points of the West Virginia Miners rebellion of 1921. This book , like so many others could use more and better maps.
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November 7, 2025West Virginia was formed early in the Civil War when most of the population of western Virginia, which included many small farmers and very few slaveowners, succeeded from the secession to stay in the Union. Many Americans don’t know that, and in addition have all kinds of stereotypes about the “hillbillies” or “rednecks” who live there, that they’re “inbred,” for example. Well, nobody was as inbred as the royal families of Europe! And there had been lots of new immigration after 1900; Italians, Greeks, Slavs and increased numbers of African Americans.
As John Williams writes in his introduction, “It was one of the union's [United Mine Workers] great achievements to have forged a degree of unity among a heterogenous working population thrown together only recently and under adverse circumstances. And though this unity was fragile and sporadic, its memory was fortified by the many tellings and retellings of the events of 1921 and helped to bring into existence the more militant and enduring miners’ unity that emerged during the 1930s.”
I had seen John Sayles’ brilliant film ‘Matewan’ when it came out in 1987 and saw it again recently. Sayles wrote a brief foreword to this book, explaining that it was the best source he found in doing research for the film, which doesn’t claim to be historically accurate. I wish I had known that sooner, since I read another book, The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America's Largest Labor Uprising, which I found hard to get into, and didn’t get much out of. This book by Lon Savage is exciting, which is what labor history should be.
Savage writes,
“’We was just all leaders.’ It could hardly be expressed better. The miners’ army was a singular example of working anarchy, held together for a time by a common drive, a common understanding, a set of common emotions, added to a touch of muscle, a bit of mob rule, and occasional terror tactics. The men knew where they wanted to go and how to get there, and they were united in this knowledge. They moved in groups, comparable to platoons or companies, because they ran in groups from their own mining camps and union locals. In most groups, leaders already existed; where there were none, leaders emerged, as they always do.”
This is absolutely right! People forget (if they ever knew) that the first soviets—workers councils—were formed spontaneously during the Russian Revolution of 1905, and again in 1917. For some years such councils were formed during revolutions and mass upsurges in many countries.
After the murder of Sid Hatfield, one of the few elected officials who stood up to the mine-owners, masses of miners armed themselves and prepared to march on non-union Mingo County, where the UMW was trying to organize miners in the face of violence from the company’s gun-thugs.
“A crowd gathered near the creek mouth beneath the trees, and Mother Jones (see Mother Jones Speaks: Speeches and Writings of a Working-Class Fighter) spoke. She surprised them all by urging moderation. The march would do no good, she said; they couldn't win. Go home, she said. She had a telegram from President Harding asking that the march on Mingo be abandoned, she said, and she pretended to read from it: ‘I request,’ she quoted the telegram, ‘that you abandon your purpose and return to your homes, and I assure you that my good offices will be used to forever eliminate the gunman system from the state of West Virginia.’ It didn't sound like a president. Keeney, Mooney, Blizzard, and Holt were in the audience, and they couldn't believe it. They asked to see the telegram, and Mother Jones refused. “It's a damn lie,” Mooney shouted to the audience. “Go to hell,” Mother Jones shouted back. Keeney, standing in an open car, got the crowd's attention. The old lady had turned against her boys, he said. The telegram was fake. It was too late to turn back. Pay no attention to Mother Jones.”
One could make a good argument against marching on Mingo County—but lying about a telegram from the US president wasn’t a good argument. Some rank-and-file leaders also invented horror stories to motivate going to Mingo. Spontaneity has its limitations. And after one of the most massive labor rebellions in US history, the miners had little to show for it.
There is a need for need for trained, battle tested revolutionary leaders like in the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strikes—who always told the truth, regardless of whether it was what the members wanted to hear or not. The story of the Minneapolis Teamsters is told by one of their leaders, Farrell Dobbs, who wrote four books on this, starting with Teamster Rebellion. He wasn’t happy telling Teamsters to take their guns home, but he did it, and then he and other leaders worked out a way to get back at the cops without guns.
The other three books take up questions of tactics and strategy and relate the organization, which Dobbs led, of over-the-road and other drivers throughout the Midwest. Dobbs was a leader of the Socialist Workers Party.
There are other good books on mass labor struggles. In American Labor Struggles: 1877-1934, Samuel Yellen recounts ten major strikes between 1877–1934, including the Pennsylvania anthracite strikes in 1902, and “Bloody Ludlow” in Colorado, 1913–14.
Labor's Giant Step: The First Twenty Years of the CIO: 1936-55 by Art Preis, labor editor of the ‘Militant,’ is about the mass upsurge that built the CIO, which split off from the AFL to organize the unskilled workers on an industrial basis, what the IWW had previously tried to do. The UMW was a major part of the CIO from the beginning, and the book relates their important strike during World War II, against the official “no-strike” policy of the US government and many unions, while the makers of arms and ammunition were getting rich from the war.
Coal Miners on Strike tells the story of how Miners for Democracy retook control of their union, and the 111-day 1977–78 strike and the 1981 strike and contract rejection vote. In Defense of the U.S. Working Class relates how the 2018 teachers strikes in West Virginia and elsewhere built on the long tradition of the coal miners’ militancy.
Today, read In Defense of the U.S. Working Class.
As John Williams writes in his introduction, “It was one of the union's [United Mine Workers] great achievements to have forged a degree of unity among a heterogenous working population thrown together only recently and under adverse circumstances. And though this unity was fragile and sporadic, its memory was fortified by the many tellings and retellings of the events of 1921 and helped to bring into existence the more militant and enduring miners’ unity that emerged during the 1930s.”
I had seen John Sayles’ brilliant film ‘Matewan’ when it came out in 1987 and saw it again recently. Sayles wrote a brief foreword to this book, explaining that it was the best source he found in doing research for the film, which doesn’t claim to be historically accurate. I wish I had known that sooner, since I read another book, The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America's Largest Labor Uprising, which I found hard to get into, and didn’t get much out of. This book by Lon Savage is exciting, which is what labor history should be.
Savage writes,
“’We was just all leaders.’ It could hardly be expressed better. The miners’ army was a singular example of working anarchy, held together for a time by a common drive, a common understanding, a set of common emotions, added to a touch of muscle, a bit of mob rule, and occasional terror tactics. The men knew where they wanted to go and how to get there, and they were united in this knowledge. They moved in groups, comparable to platoons or companies, because they ran in groups from their own mining camps and union locals. In most groups, leaders already existed; where there were none, leaders emerged, as they always do.”
This is absolutely right! People forget (if they ever knew) that the first soviets—workers councils—were formed spontaneously during the Russian Revolution of 1905, and again in 1917. For some years such councils were formed during revolutions and mass upsurges in many countries.
After the murder of Sid Hatfield, one of the few elected officials who stood up to the mine-owners, masses of miners armed themselves and prepared to march on non-union Mingo County, where the UMW was trying to organize miners in the face of violence from the company’s gun-thugs.
“A crowd gathered near the creek mouth beneath the trees, and Mother Jones (see Mother Jones Speaks: Speeches and Writings of a Working-Class Fighter) spoke. She surprised them all by urging moderation. The march would do no good, she said; they couldn't win. Go home, she said. She had a telegram from President Harding asking that the march on Mingo be abandoned, she said, and she pretended to read from it: ‘I request,’ she quoted the telegram, ‘that you abandon your purpose and return to your homes, and I assure you that my good offices will be used to forever eliminate the gunman system from the state of West Virginia.’ It didn't sound like a president. Keeney, Mooney, Blizzard, and Holt were in the audience, and they couldn't believe it. They asked to see the telegram, and Mother Jones refused. “It's a damn lie,” Mooney shouted to the audience. “Go to hell,” Mother Jones shouted back. Keeney, standing in an open car, got the crowd's attention. The old lady had turned against her boys, he said. The telegram was fake. It was too late to turn back. Pay no attention to Mother Jones.”
One could make a good argument against marching on Mingo County—but lying about a telegram from the US president wasn’t a good argument. Some rank-and-file leaders also invented horror stories to motivate going to Mingo. Spontaneity has its limitations. And after one of the most massive labor rebellions in US history, the miners had little to show for it.
There is a need for need for trained, battle tested revolutionary leaders like in the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strikes—who always told the truth, regardless of whether it was what the members wanted to hear or not. The story of the Minneapolis Teamsters is told by one of their leaders, Farrell Dobbs, who wrote four books on this, starting with Teamster Rebellion. He wasn’t happy telling Teamsters to take their guns home, but he did it, and then he and other leaders worked out a way to get back at the cops without guns.
The other three books take up questions of tactics and strategy and relate the organization, which Dobbs led, of over-the-road and other drivers throughout the Midwest. Dobbs was a leader of the Socialist Workers Party.
There are other good books on mass labor struggles. In American Labor Struggles: 1877-1934, Samuel Yellen recounts ten major strikes between 1877–1934, including the Pennsylvania anthracite strikes in 1902, and “Bloody Ludlow” in Colorado, 1913–14.
Labor's Giant Step: The First Twenty Years of the CIO: 1936-55 by Art Preis, labor editor of the ‘Militant,’ is about the mass upsurge that built the CIO, which split off from the AFL to organize the unskilled workers on an industrial basis, what the IWW had previously tried to do. The UMW was a major part of the CIO from the beginning, and the book relates their important strike during World War II, against the official “no-strike” policy of the US government and many unions, while the makers of arms and ammunition were getting rich from the war.
Coal Miners on Strike tells the story of how Miners for Democracy retook control of their union, and the 111-day 1977–78 strike and the 1981 strike and contract rejection vote. In Defense of the U.S. Working Class relates how the 2018 teachers strikes in West Virginia and elsewhere built on the long tradition of the coal miners’ militancy.
Today, read In Defense of the U.S. Working Class.
July 21, 2023
I am the proud daughter of a UMWA member. My Dad and I took a trip to West Virginia in 2021 and I picked up Thunder in the Mountains on the trip. I have too many books and not enough time and put off reading this one until this week. I wish I hadn’t. Lon Savage’s account of the war is told with an entertaining and neutral narrative. He does a great job of describing the places, the people, and the problem. I am glad that more blood wasn’t shed, considering the weapons the Chaffin, the company men, and the Baldwin-Felts wielded, I think it is a miracle. I wish the miners had met more of their objectives, but considering the times I wasn’t surprised. For five days the miners lived the words of Mother Jones, “Mourn the dead, but fight like hell for the living!” It’s always worth the fight!
September 5, 2025
Finally got around to finishing this one - really fascinating book covering the history of the WV Mine Wars and the attempted unionization of miners in souther WV. Good representation of the corruption and capitalist control at the time. Pretty crazy how some areas of the US were like the Wild West only 100ish yrs ago. Overall book was a little slow with maybe a few too many names and stories, but the idea was captured well and the research must have taken years. Some fun characters (Sid Hatfield, Jessie Hatfield, Mayor Testerman, Mother Jones). Insane that the US dropped bombs on citizens, but that was just the time ig? Need to visit the museum fs
August 6, 2018
If you were a coal miner in West Virginia in 1920 you would have been a part of the conflict between the mine owners and the UMWA. The conflict led to thousands of miners taking up arms against not only the owner's "thugs", but also local law enforcement, state police and national guard. Not until President Harding sent in the U.S. Army did the insurrection end.
A grim chapter in our history that highlights the struggle between private unions and corporate owners.
A grim chapter in our history that highlights the struggle between private unions and corporate owners.
January 13, 2024
My family is from Shepherdstown WV and Charles' Town WV. My great-grandfather died after he was given a rifle to stop striking union miners. I NEEDED to know the story of this place and the context for generational family culture. I discovered one of the most insane moments of American history. Machine guns, battle trains, cold-blooded murder, ace pilots, and some overly emotional men shooting over the hills. 10/10 reccommend.
January 24, 2019
A fascinating and gripping account of what has been called the largest insurrection in the United States since the Civil War, yet is little-remembered outside of southern West Virginia. Scholarship and careful research presented in the compelling writing style of an accomplished journalist makes for a great read.
July 25, 2025
Nothing flashy in the writing here, just a straightforward account of a part of history I'd missed. I learned something, and I got some context for it, which is what I basically want in a short history book. The subject itself is an interesting mix of small-town politics, labor struggles, government interventions, and general human folly.
Read
November 2, 2020A superbly written history of the mining war in West Virginia during 1920-21. Union coal miners striking for a better life pick of their guns to avenge the murder of Sid Hatfield on the steps of a courthouse. Riveting.
January 20, 2023
If you wonder why labor unions are important this account of the abuse and murders of mine workers and their families in the coal mines of West Virginia and the resulting war between the miners and mine operators will give you an idea. It is a very readable and suspenseful account.
December 19, 2025
Well researched, true story of the deep conflict between union miners and the mine owners/operators in the mountains of West Virginia in 1920-1921 which attracted national attention and involved many levels of law and military enforcement and government officials.
March 25, 2021
I grew up in Matewan WV on the Tug River, and even though I knew some of this history, I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about these events that happened nearly 30 years before I was born.
July 12, 2021
Really enjoyed this book! Read it in a few days while on vacation at the beach. Definitely a part of history not taught broadly. Written in a “page turning” fashion imho.
July 28, 2023
Fantastic narrative-driven accounting of an oft forgotten piece of history.
September 13, 2024
Interesting and informative.
October 7, 2025
Enjoyed the story and the history. Well written, much better than most historical accounts I e read. Lon Savage did well.
December 6, 2025
Well-researched, good narrative, wild events, can’t really ask for anything more.
January 28, 2017
I loved reading this, though not necessarily because it was incredibly well-written. The writing was compelling, I think, if you were born in Appalachia or otherwise have a deep-seated appreciation of the style of Appalachian storytelling, which is evident in the book. Irrelevant details are thrown in, and there is an slightly-odd, consistent referencing of black miners as black, when white miners are not called "white miners," but just "miners." The point of this racial specificity in some cases and not others, is, rather clearly for one with my background, to call attention to the fact that black miners existed in West Virginia when their contributions have often been forgotten. But in 2013, and to someone who may not know all that, the phrasing is probably clumsy. The copy of this book I had also either suffered from some editing oversights, or words were left in an Appalachian colloquial on purpose; I'm not sure which, but I could forgive them easily if the intent were the latter. However, I am very proud of West Virginia's union heritage, from which I spring, and this book details key events in southern West Virginia's coal mining history. It's the only nonfiction book, I believe, that details the 1920-1921 mine war. In addition to the particulars of the miners' organizing and outmaneuvering of the coal companies on numerous occasions, I was also really struck by the reality of their failure on so many fronts, ultimately, and in the very, very creepy ways in which federal officials welcomed the mine war as a chance to test out/show off new weaponry, especially aerial, developed during WWI. I do think this should be required reading for anyone interested in labor history in the US.
February 6, 2017
This book looks at the short conflict which took place in southwest West Virginia when violence escalated, first when private detectives in the pay of the coal companies got into a gunfight with locals in Matewan when the detectives came out to evict the families of miners trying to unionize. and then exploding when the local pro-labor constable, Sid Hatfield, was shot down on the steps of the courthouse in Welch by detectives in broad daylight as he was about to go to trial. The detectives were freed on bail.
The situation rapidly spun out of control as miners collected their rifles and pistols and decided to march to free other miners being held on murder charges related to the Matewan incident. It became clear that state police could not stop the men and there was no National Guard in West Virginia at the time, so federal troops were brought in to restore order or, if necessary, fight the miners. General Mitchell sent fighters and bombers to suppress the uprising. The United States appeared to be on the verge of another civil war.
This is an amazing story, one I was only vaguely familiar with. Mr. Savage has written a great book on this topic, bringing several of the characters to life discussing the political and social issues involved in coal mining in the 1920s. His book is detailed without getting bogged down in details. If you only want to read one book on this topic then this should be the one. Includes black and white photos.
The situation rapidly spun out of control as miners collected their rifles and pistols and decided to march to free other miners being held on murder charges related to the Matewan incident. It became clear that state police could not stop the men and there was no National Guard in West Virginia at the time, so federal troops were brought in to restore order or, if necessary, fight the miners. General Mitchell sent fighters and bombers to suppress the uprising. The United States appeared to be on the verge of another civil war.
This is an amazing story, one I was only vaguely familiar with. Mr. Savage has written a great book on this topic, bringing several of the characters to life discussing the political and social issues involved in coal mining in the 1920s. His book is detailed without getting bogged down in details. If you only want to read one book on this topic then this should be the one. Includes black and white photos.
January 7, 2015
Insightful account of the West Virginia Mine War of 1920-21. This is an important episode in U.S. labor history, as well as an interesting portrait of Appalachia at the end of the First World War, as told [mainly:] through the press accounts of the day.. A good companion reading for anyone who's interested in John Sayles' Matewan, as Savage's book was used as a resource in the making of the film.
January 14, 2009
This is an extremely fascinating account of something which I never even knew occured! Beyond the Hatfields and McCoys, the heart is about the union struggles against big coal corporations and the men who stopped at nothing (murders, property destruction, etc...) to quelch rebellion. The writing is better than your typical historical account too.
July 25, 2015
Wonderful!
ix Why did West Virginia never gain wealth and stability from coal?
Why did gramps end up in west Virginia? Did he have to settle for a job in West Virginia because he did not have a degree?
xii Southern West Virginia was the union non-union frontier.
xv The character of the Appalachian coalfields.
106 Beech Creek killings of miner families
109 How non-miners responded.
ix Why did West Virginia never gain wealth and stability from coal?
Why did gramps end up in west Virginia? Did he have to settle for a job in West Virginia because he did not have a degree?
xii Southern West Virginia was the union non-union frontier.
xv The character of the Appalachian coalfields.
106 Beech Creek killings of miner families
109 How non-miners responded.
December 23, 2007
I just found a copy of this at a used bookstore. I remember coming across it in the early 90s when I worked at a library... for some reason, the volatile West Virginia Mine War of 1920 struck me as a fascinating story. It still does.
January 26, 2013
This book was totally amazing...gave me such a look at the determination and strength of the people of the state I am proud to call home! I can think of no better words than the ones used by the author top describe the coal mine wars of 1920-21.
December 31, 2007
This book taught me a lot about why my home state is how it is. If you read this and don't come away with a new hero in Two Gun Sid, well, I don't reckon there's any romance in yer soul.
January 27, 2008
I read this as research and found it useful
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews