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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 5, 1920
Robert Minor on the Battle at Matewan Between Citizens and Gunthugs
From the New York Liberator of August 1920:
IV of IV
About half past five in the afternoon, Chief Hatfield was standing around when a boy runs in, saying, “The thugs is come to town!”
Sid Hatfield walked out quick to the back street and there was Albert and Lee Felts and C. B. Cunningham, the gunman that was known for being quick on the draw. And standing back of them was ten Baldwin-Felts men. Then there was a dummy that had been hanging around town all day without any gun and not letting on he was a Baldwin-Felts man.
Sid walked up to Albert Felts and says, “I’ve got a warrant for you.”
Albert sort of grinned and says, “I’ll return the compliment; I’ve got a warrant for you.” All of the thugs kind of shuffled around on one foot and then the other, and pretty soon Sid was surrounded. Sid looked around and seen there was no friends near, only Isaac Brewer, the town policeman, was standing quiet.
Albert Felts says to Sid, “We’ll take you up to Bluefield on the train that’s due in seven minutes.” Sid says nothing and just smiles. And Albert says, “We’ll ride on the Pullman, Sid,” and walks Sid over to near the place where the end of the train will stop, and says, “Is this where the Pullman stops?” and Sid said “Yes.”
Sid knew it wasn’t no Pullman ride they planned for him, but that they wanted to be near the end of the train to jump on when they got through with him. The train only stops a minute.
They stood around waiting, and Sid kind of edged back towards the town-side of the street, near the back door of Chambers’ hardware store. Albert Felts and Cunningham the gunman kept close to, Sid, while Lee Felts and the ten other gunmen was standing back a little piece, nearer the railroad track. Albert says again that the train will be in in seven minutes and they would take the Pullman.
Sid said “Yes,” and kept on smiling, and pretty soon he was standing in the doorway of the [Chambers’] hardware store, leaning against the door-facing and looking out toward the railroad track. Albert puts one foot in the door and one foot was out on the sidewalk. Isaac Brewer come up inside the store and stood behind Sid, nobody noticing him. Nobody else around, only a few coal diggers that was fired for joining the Union was standing near the track waiting for the train, due in seven minutes.
Mayor Testaman [Testerman] came running down the street and come up to Albert and says, “I understand you are arresting my Chief of Police. I need him for his duties here to protect the town, and I’ll give bond for him. I’ll give any amount of bond you name; I’ll give the whole bank as security.”
Albert Felts says “No; I’m going to take him to Bluefield.”
“To Bluefield!” says the Mayor, “Why don’t you take him to Williamson, that is the County Seat of this county?”
“No,” says Albert, “I’m going to ‘take him to Bluefield.”
Then the Mayor says, “Let me see your warrant.”
Albert puts his hand slow into his pocket and takes out a paper and hands it to the Mayor. The Mayor opens up the folded paper. While he is reading it, Albert turns his head toward where Lee and the ten detectives was standing. Albert raised himself right slow on his toes and lets himself down again. He, does this three times, taking a deep breath each time, and then he kind of slides back a little behind the brick door-facing.
Lee’s face changes kind of queer, like he was expected to do something but ain’t got the guts. And nothing happens. The Mayor finishes reading the paper and looks up and says, “This is a bogus warrant.”
Then Albert draws his gun and shoots from the hip into the Mayor’s stomach and then wheels quick and fires at Sid. The bullet misses Sid and goes through Isaac Brewer’s right lung, paralyzing his gun hand, and him being a man that can’t shoot with his left.
Sid drawed two guns, one in each hand. He put a bullet right away through Albert Felts’ forehead that came out the back of his neck, and then one through Cunningham’s head, shooting for the head because of us being under the impression them fellows always wears a coat of nails.
The ten detectives and Lee opened up heavy on Sid with Colt’s 45 automatics in each hand, but the close-range shooting had made a smoke-cloud around Sid so they couldn’t aim on him good. One of their bullets knocked Sid’s Smith & Wesson 38 out of his hand, but he walked towards them, using his 44.
By now all the guns was in actIon, the prettiest lot of artillery you ever seen. Lee Felts he stood emptying a Colt’s automatic 45 at Sid, except one shot he turns and kills Tot Tinsley, which was a boy of eighteen that ran past him into the vacant lot. Then Lee put the empty gun back in the holster and drawed another, which he aims steady with both hands at Sid. Somebody seen Lee and pulled down with a highpower. The bullet goes through the heart of Lee and it seemed like he jumped ten feet up, and he fell back on his back with his mouth open and his arms spread out, and his Colt’s 45 still in his hand. A coal digger seen it and jumped over Lee and kicked the gun out of his hand and caught it up and put it into action. None of the guns was idle.
With Albert and Lee Felts and Cunningham dead, the detectives broke and run around the Post Office corner. One of them got into the little lemonade stand that was standing on the sidewalk, him thinking kind of funny, that the thin boards would stop the bullets. And one tall, skinny detective run for Doctor Smith’s office in the one-story brick building back of the Post Office, aiming to fight from in there. But a young coal digger had run in before, him being unarmed, and when he seen the detective at the door with a gun in each hand he thought the guy was coming for him and he picked up a gallon bottle of medicine and busted the detective plumb on the head, with it. The guy fell back with his eyes popping out and somebody put two or three bullets in to make sure, while he was falling.
When Sid got plumb around the corner, there was a Baldwin-Felts man across the side street, and he fired at Sid, but Sid got him. Another detective run around the bank corner and run plumb into Bob Mullins, and he shot Bob dead, and then he turned and made a stand. He was shooting from behind the back corner, and he was hard to get because of Sid’s bullets clipping the corner bricks, but soon he was got through the shoulder and he turned and run.
There was a red-mustached fellow laying on the sidewalk with his legs broke by bullets, and he kept shooting at Sid and Sid got him. Sid quit smiling and told me, “That one with the red mustache-I disremember his name-he sure had guts.”
The rest of them ran past Chambers’ hog lot toward the river.
One detective that had got shot through bad, he went to the river to wade across, but he seen he couldn’t make it, and he come back up to where a widow lady lives. He come in the door, and he says, “Lady, I am shot through. Lady, let me come in; if you will shelter me I will give you two thousand dollars.” But the lady said, “Oh, God, you can’t come in here; if you come in I’ll have to go out,” And the fellow went on down the road and somebody fired a shotgun and he fell dead.
Everybody left off shooting and came back up, and there was seven dead detectives laying in the street, and four coal diggers wounded and the Mayor the same as dead, and Bob Mullins dead and Tot Tinsley, in the vacant lot.
And the train for Bluefield hadn’t come in yet.
* * *
Somebody told me something that they said was very important, about an investigation, but I disremember what it was.
When the gun-play begins again on battle-scale in Mingo and Logan, I hope you will understand how came it. And when Sid Hatfield is tried for the killing of Albert Felts, I hope a plenty of people will back him up for his defense, for I think he’s the kind of man the world needs more of.
[Newsclip added from Washington Times of May 20, 1920.]
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SOURCE
The Liberator
(New York, New York)
-Aug 1920
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/culture/pubs/liberator/1920/08/v3n08-w29-aug-1920-liberator.pdf
IMAGE
Battle of Matewan, WDC Tx p1, May 20, 1920
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1920-05-20/ed-1/seq-1/
See also:
WDC Times, May 20, 1920
-The Battle of Matewan,
Lewis Demands Protection for Miners from WV Governor
Thunder In the Mountains
The West Virginia Mine War, 1920–21
-by Lon Savage
University of Pittsburgh Pre, Sep 11, 1990
(search: “battle of matewan”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=u-n7AwAAQBAJ
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Matewan Massacre & Battle of Blair Mountain – Byzantine
-with incredible video from Hillbilly Proud