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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
The Baldwin-Felts agents persisted, however, based on permission from a local justice of the peace.[4] Baldwin-Felts agents carried out their evictions under watch of a crowd of miners and their families. Hearing of the trouble stirring in Matewan, miners from surrounding areas armed themselves and made their way to the town in case of a larger conflict.As the Baldwin-Felts agents were headed to the train station to depart Matewan, they were confronted once more by Police Chief Sid Hatfield and Mayor Cabel Testerman. Both Hatfield and Baldwin-Felts agent Albert Felts reported that they had warrants for the others arrest.Accounts of the May 19th shootout itself differ.[9] Some reports indicate that Baldwin-Felts agents attempted to arrest Sid Hatfield, and shot Mayor Testermen when he intervened on Hatfield's behalf. Others indicate that Hatfield initiated the violence, either by firing himself or by signalling a prepared ambush. In either case, the shootout resulted in ten dead: Mayor Testerman, two miners, and seven Baldwin-Felts agents, including Baldwin-Felts Agency Chief Thomas Felts' younger brothers, Albert and Lee.After the Battle of Matewan[edit]Support for unionization in Mingo County increased after the Matewan Shootout. By July 1, 1920, in the county had unionized and joined the UMW strike. Miners and mine guards engaged in several armed skirmishes over the closure of coal mines and access to rail routes in the summer and fall of 1920. The West Virginia government declared martial law and sent federal troops to quell the strike, but backed down under threat of a general strike of all union coal miners in West Virginia.[3]Baldwin-Felts Agency Chief Thomas Felts hired a team of lawyers to prosecute a case against Sid Hatfield and fifteen other men alleged to have participated in the Matewan Shootout, specifically on the charge of murdering Albert Felts. All sixteen men were, however,
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