Fiction and Poetry

The Battle of Blair Mountain

Logan County, West Virginia--1921

I said to them “Yes, I’ll join
The union.”  I’ll separate
From my job and risk the life
Of my newborn child for the sake
Of the children in the mines.

I don’t want my own boy
Growing up this way:
Away from his mother and stuck
Crawling in a coffin of coal, fearing
The silence of the canary’s song.

So I joined for him, for those who die
From typhoid born from overcrowding
And dirty water.  For those who crawl
On hands and knees to tap
Nature’s energy for the company.

I wasn’t surprised when the gun thugs
Knocked on my door and forced
My family out of the coal
Camp.  Then homeless, we searched
For other miners who wore red

Bandanas. It was how we knew
We were brothers in battle
Against miners’ wages:  pennies
For pork chops; battle against black lung
And blow outs.

Inside all of us men knew
That we could not have survived
Without our wives,
Walking beside us, children strapped
On their hips.

We marched toward Logan
With guns we stole from the company store.
Ammunition and medicine waited
In Danville to aid our army,
A growing ten thousand.

Blair Mountain stood between us
And our victory.  The U.S. Army threatened
To end our war before the battle began.
They told us without words to return
To homes that no longer stood.

Still we charged up the wooded mountain,
Met with gun thug bullets, dropping
Our men by the thousands.  Lost limbs
Littered the forest, and men were carried
To makeshift hospitals.

We couldn’t fight their loaded planes
Bringing bombs and gas, and we knew
The U.S. army had succeeded.
They forced us back to our homes,
Where we stood trial for treason.