Return to Matewan

by R.G. Yoho

In the early 1900s, the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency played a brutal and bloody role in the union strikes and violence that took place in both Matewan, West Virginia, and Ludlow, Colorado. As ruthless as they were effective, the Baldwin-Felts' detectives were loved by the mine owners, but universally feared and hated by the coal miners and their families. On August 1, 1921, when agents of Baldwin-Felts murdered an unarmed Sid Hatfield on the courthouse steps in Welch, West Virginia, they had no way of knowing that the constable's illegitimate son was also among those in the crowd. Two years later, young Billy Hatfield begins seeking revenge upon the agents who murdered his father. Desperate to capture him, Baldwin-Felts calls in their most dependable troubleshooter, Morgan Cobb, who was born and raised in the town of Matewan. The son of Sheriff Sid Hatfield enters into a life-and-death struggle with Morgan Cobb, an agent of Baldwin-Felts. So begins the gripping, historical novel... Return to Matewan.

202 pages, Paperback

First published October 2, 2015

About the author

R.G. Yoho is a West Virginia native with a passion for history and tales of the American West. A proud member of the Western Writers of America and a 2022 Spur Award finalist, he's author of the five-book Kellen Malone Western series as well as books of historical fiction and nonfiction.

Yoho is also America's foremost authority on the life of Baldwin-Felts Agent and notorious coal mine spy, Charles E. Lively, who he profiled in the biography, "Charles E. Lively. The Deadliest Man in the West Virginia-Colorado Coal Mine Wars."

Yoho's varied career includes speaker, radio talk show host and political columnist, as well as a retired laboratory technician and process operator in the chemicals industry. Yoho is also the past president of the West Virginia Writers, Inc.

He lives in Southeast Ohio, near the Ohio-West Virginia border, with his wife of 43 years. They have three children, a nephew who is like a son and twelve grandchildren.

Yoho grew up on a cattle farm. Today, along with his son and grandsons, the author raises registered Texas Longhorns.

Visit his Author's Page on Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/R.G.Yoho.

You can also follow him on:
Twitter/X: @rgyoho.
TikTok: @rgyoho1

You can also visit his YouTube Channel at: https://www.youtube.com/user/YohoPubl...

Reviews

[J. Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Return to Matewan
By R. G. Yoho
White Feather Press

Reviewed by Keith Jones

I have read almost all of R. G. Yoho's books and I must say that “Return to Matewan” goes to the head of the class. I am a fan of his work in general, but I must say that Yoho should observe what he did with this book and keep doing it.

This effort is a departure from his usual Western, instead meeting the old Western and a modern day East Coast setting half way: just after World War I in West Virginia. Yoho leverages on events during the height of the violent coal mining strikes in West Virginia, Kentucky and Colorado. Mine owners in those days would hire private detective agencies to provide security and otherwise protect their interests in those troubled times. Unfortunately the security and protection of their interests often equated to brutalizing and punishing any who dared oppose them. One of the largest and most powerful of these agencies was the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency.

Principal ground work for this book lies in the famous Battle of Matewan, where Sheriff Sid Hatfield and his deputies shoot it out in the streets with the agents of Baldwin-Felts who were trying to evict miners from their homes in retaliation for labor organization actions. Two of the Felts brothers, siblings of co-owner Thomas Felts, were killed in this fight in which Hatfield prevailed. Felts would have the last say when his agents gunned an unarmed Hatfield down in the street on his way to a court appearance. Claiming self-defense none would be punished.

So, enter Billy Hatfield, illegitimate son of Sid Hatfield, and we are off to the races with a good old fashioned story of revenge. Add in Morgan Cobb, war hero, native son and top trouble shooter for the detective agency who is seeking a better life to escape from past sins committed in dealing with other such matters before and you also have a story of redemption. The dynamics between Hatfield and Cobb along with carefully crafted history and back story make this a tale worth spending the day with.

“Return to Matewan” is R. G. Yoho at his finest.