General Real Origins of RedNeck-Battle of Blair Mountain

Welcome to our Community
Wanting to join the rest of our members? Feel free to Sign Up today.
Sign up
Rambo John J

Rambo John J

Eats things that would make a Billy Goat Puke
First 100
Jan 17, 2015
71,713
71,599
The Red Neck Army marches to Blair Mountain - Appalachian History

The real story of the origins of the term Redneck is a story you are probably not familiar with.
This story includes the only Bombing of Americans on American soil.
This story highlights the reason for the 2nd amendment.
This story is about Labor Rights and the people who fought for them.

Amazing read and story IMO...I only learned of it yesterday
The term Redneck has been hijacked and mis-used IMO...most likely on purpose
 
Last edited:
Rambo John J

Rambo John J

Eats things that would make a Billy Goat Puke
First 100
Jan 17, 2015
71,713
71,599
The Red Neck Army marches to Blair Mountain

Posted by Dave Tabler | August 24, 2016

The Battle of Blair Mountain marked a turning point in the national movement to better the conditions of working people by demanding the legalization of unions. It was the largest armed labor confrontation in U.S. history, and it began on August 24, 1921.

The highway historical marker erected last April by the state of West Virginia in front of the United Mine Workers headquarters in downtown Charleston honoring him claims organizer Bill Blizzard had mobilized 7,000 striking miners; other estimates place the figure as high as 13,000.

West Virginia coal operators did all they could to oppose unionism. The main problem was that mine workers were forced to sign legally binding “yellow-dog” contracts (upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court) under which miners pledged not to join a union or risked forfeiting their jobs as well as the right to live in company housing. In exchange they were paid next to nothing, had no freedom of speech or assembly, and were killed with impunity by mine guards and local politicos in an atmosphere akin to a third-world dictatorship.

By the summer of 1921 the “Red Neck Army” was outraged over the years of brutality and lawless exploitation. And so the miners picked up their Winchesters and gathered at Marmet (near Charleston) that summer morning, and from there began marching on Logan and Mingo counties — the last two non-union counties in West Virginia.
 
Rambo John J

Rambo John J

Eats things that would make a Billy Goat Puke
First 100
Jan 17, 2015
71,713
71,599
Blair Mountain, a 1,600-acre ridge located to the southwest, stood between the Armed March and their destination. About three hundred deputies and mine guards, under Sheriff Don Chafin, waited for the marchers in fortified positions in a fifteen-mile-long battle line along the crest, commanding the high passes. The coal companies paid Chafin some $32,000 per year to keep the UMW out of Logan County.

Frank Keeney, president of UMW District 17, met with Governor John J. Cornwell and General J. H. Bandholtz, and Federal troops were promised to the region. Keeney set out on the road to try and head off this violent confrontation.

“I’ve told you men God knows how many times that any time you want to do battle against Don Chafin and his thugs I’ll be right there in the front lines with you. I’ve been there before and you know it. But this time you’ve got more than Don Chafin against you. You’ve got more than the governor of West Virginia against you [boos]. You’ve got the government of the United States against you!

“Now I’m telling you for your own good and for the good of the cause, you’ve got to do it. Break up this march. Go home. Get back to your jobs. You’ve got Uncle Sam on your side now, and he won’t let you down. You can fight the government of West Virginia, but by God you can’t fight the government of the United States.”

The appeal worked. The men grumbled but began to head home. Trains began arriving to take the miners home. It looked like a showdown wouldn’t happen after all.
 
Rambo John J

Rambo John J

Eats things that would make a Billy Goat Puke
First 100
Jan 17, 2015
71,713
71,599
Then a rumor spread among the miners: They are shooting women and children at Sharples!

What had happened was that heedless of the truce between General Bandholtz and the governor, Chapin and his men had crept down from Blair Mountain intent on arresting the ringleaders of the miners. A shootout erupted and several miners were killed before Chapin and his men were driven off.

The miners returned to their march and the battle was on.

The following day the miners made a major push on the front line.

“Logan County deputies were driven down the hillside in a skirmish with an armed force from the other side of Spruce Fork Ridge, Captain I. G. Hollingsworth reported at 7 o’clock. Heavy fighting continued on two other sectors of the line during the afternoon and evening.

“‘We intend to hold our lines with all the power at our command,’ Colonel W. E. Eubanks [commanding officer of the militia] said. ‘We have 1,200 men in the line and fighting is continuing in the Blair sector and along Crooked Creek.'”

The battle raged for nearly a week. Chafin called in reinforcements from other counties, and even offered prisoners freedom if they fought for the non-union defenders.
 
Rambo John J

Rambo John J

Eats things that would make a Billy Goat Puke
First 100
Jan 17, 2015
71,713
71,599
By August 30 the defenders had massed themselves at Craddock Fork of Hewett Creek and felt they were about to break through. At that point Chafin began contracting private airplane pilots at $100 a day to fly over the miners and drop homemade bombs on them.

The bombing was largely ineffective, but it made the event interesting enough that newspapers from around the country began sending war correspondents.

Several times the miners nearly broke through the defenses, but were driven back each time. Eventually President Harding intervened with a declaration of martial law, and sent 2,000 U.S. Army troops armed with poison gas. He also sent a fleet of bombers commanded by General Billy Mitchell, but they were never used except to drop a couple bombs in a demonstration of military potential.

The federal troops met with Bill Blizzard and gave the presidential order to desist. Blizzard spread the word and then high-tailed it out of there. The rest of the miners hid their guns on the side of the mountain and headed for home. It was no longer an army, just a bunch of tired and dirty men trying to get home. The undeclared civil war was over.

The union had suffered a crushing defeat. Between 20 and 50 people had been killed in the battle on both sides. An unknown number had been wounded, probably in the hundreds.

Blizzard and some of his colleagues were indicted for treason, but later acquitted during a trial in a Harper’s Ferry courtroom. UMW organizing efforts in southern WV were halted until 1933.

Sources: The Battle of Blair Mountain, by Robert Shogan, Westview Press, 2004
 
Rambo John J

Rambo John J

Eats things that would make a Billy Goat Puke
First 100
Jan 17, 2015
71,713
71,599
The West Virginia mine wars were the bloodiest labor conflict in American history. Culminating in the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921, more than 10,000 miners marchedfrom the Kanawha valley toward Mingo to join other striking miners in protest. In their way stood the Logan county sheriff, Don Chafin, who was in the pocket of big coal – a $32,000 payoff each year, roughly $400,000 in today’s dollars.
 
Rambo John J

Rambo John J

Eats things that would make a Billy Goat Puke
First 100
Jan 17, 2015
71,713
71,599
The miners proved what we know today: there is nothing more frightening to a coal boss or corrupt politician than a courageous, united, multi-ethnic coalition of working men and women.
 
Rambo John J

Rambo John J

Eats things that would make a Billy Goat Puke
First 100
Jan 17, 2015
71,713
71,599
In the coal camps, black people found segregated housing and schools, and lower pay. Operators preferred to break strikes by importing black workers, to sow discord among the races. But by the 1910s, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) was fighting for pay equality, and requiring an oath from every member not to discriminate against any fellow member by “creed, or color, or nationality”.

Its first paid organizer in West Virginia was a black man. Miners swore an oath to each other, across “class or creed”. An early planning committee consisted of three officers: one white person born in West Virginia, one Italian immigrant and one black person.

One miner remarked: “I call it a darn solid mass of different colors and tribes, blended together, woven together, bound, interlocked, tongued and grooved together in one body.”

source for last three lumps of text
We are proud to be 'rednecks'. It's time to reclaim that term
 
6

627

Guest
Ryan Dawson was on Tin Foil Hat with Sam Tripoli a few days ago and touched on tbis subject. I never knew about it and found it extremely interesting. Gonna study up on it.
 
Rambo John J

Rambo John J

Eats things that would make a Billy Goat Puke
First 100
Jan 17, 2015
71,713
71,599
Heystro said:
Ryan Dawson was on Tin Foil Hat with Sam Tripoli a few days ago and touched on tbis subject. I never knew about it and found it extremely interesting. Gonna study up on it.
Click to expand...
Yep
I learned of this from Ryan on same episode
That guy is a Library of legit knowledge and Facts...Huge fan of his
Huge fan of Sam also...XG is great also
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom