Hellraisers Journal: “Men don’t scare easy when they fight to keep other men from burning their homes.”-Don MacGregor

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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 10, 1914
Don MacGregor Describes the Battle of the Hogback, Near Walsenburg

From the Chicago Day Book of May 5, 1914:

They fired carefully, deliberately. They didn’t fire to frighten but to kill.

But they didn’t shoot at those militiamen because the blood lust was in their veins. They shot because the memory of Ludlow was in their minds.

Soon after the battle started, Rockefeller’s murderers at the Walsen mine turned their machine guns on the city of Walsenburg. Two men were killed there, while women and children crouched in terror in the basements of their homes.

Such was the battle of Walsenburg, in which 300 strikers Wednesday [April 29th] defended their position on a hilltop against about 200 so-called militiamen.

They tell me that one militiamen and ten gunmen were killed. It’s too bad but they shouldn’t be militiamen and gunmen. They shouldn’t be working for greedy coal operators against men and women and children who are striking for bread.

It wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t working against the women and children. The men can stand their attacks. But when they kill wives and mothers and babies, kill them for hire it’s different.

I never knew braver or better men than those miners. They’re rough; they’re ignorant, but they’re men. They love their families.

And I know that when they fought the militia at Walsenburg it was simply to protect their families.

It wasn’t for revenge. It was from fear of another massacre.

The strikers under me occupied a position on a hill “the Hogback.” One-half mile back of them was their camp of Toltec, and stretching twelve miles back of that were seven other strikers’ camps in which were fifteen hundred women and children. All that stood between John D. Rockefeller’s murderers and these fifteen hundred women and children was “The Hogback” and the strikers on it.

And every man was thinking of Ludlow. Four men who had lost wives and children in the massacre there were in our ranks. They’d told the story of Ludlow, over and over again. They’d told how the militiamen and the gunmen, brought to Colorado to kill for hire, had trained their machine guns on the camp. They’d heard how the tents were set on fire, how the children screamed and died in cruel flames!

And they were determined to die rather than let those militiamen reach the camp back of Walsenburg.

We didn’t do wrong. We didn’t resist officers of the law. We resisted men who have preyed on us for months, who have shot us down, who have burned our camps and who have killed our women and children. That’s the awful part.

The battle started Monday [April 27] after noon, when Rockefeller’s army opened fire on my automobile between Toltec and Walsenburg. Tuesday the militia, men wearing the uniform of the state of Colorado, but as much in Rockefeller’s employ as the gunmen, arrived in Walsenburg. They boasted they were going to take “The Hogback” and wear “Rednecks,” their derisive name for the strikers, as watch-charms. We heard of that; we swore we would die rather than give Rockefeller’s murderers a chance to turn their machine guns on our women and children.

“The Hogback” is three miles long. We held the top of it. We only had one hundred armed men there. They crouched behind the rocks. The position was practically impregnable.

There were two hundred and fifty militiamen. There were over one hundred mine guards. They had nine machine guns. We had the advantage of position, but they outnumbered us, they had the machine guns, and were better organized.

The men under me are as brave as any in the world. They wouldn’t work in dusty mine pits if they weren’t. But they don’t know our ways. And they speak in many languages. It was because I thought that I might be able to organize them so that they could protect their camp that I joined them. All they need is organization to become great soldiers.

There wasn’t any chance of the militia coming up the face of the hill. The hill looks right down on Walsenburg, and they’d have to come up in the face of our fire in order to take it

So they tried to flank us. Two detachments of militia, both with machine guns, tried to take us in the right and left flank. Major P. P. Lester, an official of the state Red Cross, who should have been a noncombatant, led the militia who tried to turn our left flank. He was killed there.

It was not until Wednesday afternoon that Adjutant General Chase, commanding the Colorado state militia, called me up and asked for a truce. I agreed to it. I had hard work to keep my men from continuing. They had been betrayed by the militia so often, that they do not trust them even in a truce.

They didn’t start the battle. The militia fired the first shot. They had been shooting at us for two days.They were the aggressors through out. They meant to drive us back to our camp and that might mean Ludlow.

The militia had a cannon in addition to their three machine guns. They had constructed it at the mine forges. I don’t know whether they shot anything from it or whether they simply set it off with giant powder to scare our men. I think they shot pieces of iron and chain, but they didn’t do any damage.

And it didn’t scare anybody. Men don’t scare very easy when they’re fighting to keep other men from shooting up and burning their homes.

And that’s what I honestly believe would have happened if we’d lost the day.

The militia fired a steady stream of lead at us. Bullets spattered against the rocks. They whizzed by in the air. They kicked up the dust by our faces.

And all the time the machine guns kept up a persistent tattoo. There’s something pretty about the sound of a machine gun. It’s so regular. But it isn’t pretty when it’s turned against you.

All day long I heard that steady br-r-r-r-r-r and listened to the bullets whizz around me.

We suffered, but we only lost one man. He was killed by our own men. He lost his “uniform” a white handkerchief tied around the left arm. He walked into a party of our men, still carrying his rifle. They took him for a Rockefeller gunman. Eleven bullets found his body. Two other of our men were wounded.

I think it’s all over now. The federal troops are here. We welcome them. For it can’t be that the great government of the United States would turn against us like the state has.

We think we’re going to be safe from gunmen. At least, every miner prays so.

Ludlow is going to become a memory instead of an ever-present dread. We won’t have to fight days and watch nights to protect helpless women and children.

For that was the sole cause of the battle of Walsenburg. It was because of Ludlow that practically every striker in this district armed himself.

We aren’t pleading any defense. We don’t feel that we need one. Women we knew, children we played with, have been shot and burned.

We’re protecting them now.

Wouldn’t you?

[Emphasis added.]

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Quote John Lawson 1913, after October 17th Death Special attack
on Forbes Tent Colony, Beshoar p74
https://archive.org/details/outofdepths0000unse/page/74/mode/1up?q=bandanna

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 9, 1914
Apr 27-29th Battle of the Hogback
-Don MacGregor Lays Down His Pen and Picks Up a Gun

Tag: Don MacGregor
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Tag: Ludlow Massacre
https://weneverforget.org/tag/ludlow-massacre/

Tag: Colorado Coalfield War of 1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-war-of-1914/

Tag: Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/colorado-coalfield-strike-of-1913-1914/

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The Union Forever – Colorado Strike Song
(ερμηνεία: μουσικό σχήμα “Ρωμιοσύνη”) / Χαλυβουργία Ελλάδος