About Books

I always hope to find in any book I read something I can relate to in my own life. If outside my own life, I like to see something in the nature of the story that is reflected in current events. Oddly, The Battle of Blair Mountain does that eerily well considering it is about a war that took place nearly 100 years ago in West Virginia.

Battle is a carefully researched nonfiction book about the battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia and the events that led up to it in 1921. The horrible conditions suffered by most coal miners throughout the state's coal fields, plus the lack of response and concern by the coal mine owners, led to the inevitiable collective bargaining and unionizing efforts.

When violence over unionizing efforts escalated to deaths on both sides, both the miners and the mine owners' guards stockpiled weapons and strategized for war maneuvers. The mine owners and Governor Morgan pushed for the Federal government to send troops. Machine gun-armed troops flowed into West Virginia and stopped the war just as death tolls mounted on each side. When the troops arrived, they routed the miners, estimated at 9,000 (it was estimated that about half that number comprised the opposing side of mine guards and local citizens) and convinced them to lay down their arms in the interst of peace. The miners continued to lose ground politically and locally, until unionizing efforts gained strength through the next few decades.

Carefully and methodically, Mr. Shogan leads us through the intricate web of events that were swirling around the union efforts to organize for a decade and a half before the battle. Clearly outlined are the political alignments all the way up to the White House. Political alignments and narrow interests are nothing new to us today, given the present occupant in the White House, especially. At the beginning of the last century, our country was fraught with much the same problems as today. Among the same problems in West Virginia: miners who die due to inadequate safety measures; land grabbing, with threats to people’s safety; destroying property with little or no compensation; paying less than the land is worth. As ever, few miners profit in proportion to the coal company owners’ obscene excess. Most coal land owners, as usual, live outside our region, just as they did 100 years ago.

What struck me most is how little gravitas the middle class gave to the events that would eventually reshape the work conditions and fortunes of the working class—the latter group I’m from and the former I’m barely a part of now. Most of the middle class at that time wanted nothing more than the warmth of coal burning in their hearths. Lack of support for the union meant they could afford their cheap coal or have unlimited access. Today, our need is electricity, 55% of which is produced from coal-powered electric plants. Would we support miners fighting for fair wages and safe conditions if these needs led to a battle today? The point is perhaps moot, since most coal is obtained by blowing up whole mountains, and most Mountain Top Removal firms employ less than 20 miners per site. But the problems with land ownership, taxes, and safety are still prevalent in MTR as well as underground mines that still exist.

Shogan’s book tells us how it came to pass that a war nearly took place on our own ground, something only a few decades removed from the Civil War. Lest we forget, The Battle of Blair Mountain can teach us just what components have to be in place for something like this to manifest today. We are not so far removed as we’d like to think.