Battle of Stanaford
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| Battle of Stanaford | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of 1902 New River coal strike | |||||
| |||||
| Belligerents | |||||
| United Mine Workers |
United States Marshals Service Raleigh County | ||||
| Units involved | |||||
|
33 miners 125 outlaws |
500 armed citizens 50 US Marshals | ||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||
| 5–11 deaths | |||||
The Battle of Stanaford (February 25, 1903) was an armed raid against striking miners in the village of Stanaford, West Virginia, United States. It was the final episode of the 1902 New River coal strike.[1]
Deputy United States Marshall Daniel Webster Cunningham was tasked with serving injunctions on behalf of coal operators to a group of 33 miners who had marched from Quinnimont, Fayette County, to Atkinsville, in present-day East Beckley, during the course of a strike. The miners reportedly threatened him with armed resistance.[2]
Cunningham then withdrew to Beckley, and asked Raleigh County Sheriff Harvey Cook for a posse. Cunningham then went to Charleston, to assemble a group of detectives, while Sheriff Cook telegraphed Governor Albert B. White for troops. The governor instructed Cook to summon a posse of citizens to put down the uprising. Cook summoned about 500 men to appear at the courthouse with their firearms, where they were later instructed to hold themselves ready until the afternoon of that day, or until the sheriff could come to a peaceful agreement with the miners.[2]
Sam Burdette, the United Mine Workers' attorney, accompanied Cunningham and his officers back to Atkinsville from Charleston, and arraignments were made for the men who had violated the injunction, as well as bonds being paid by the union for the striking miners. Sheriff Cook returned to Beckley and told the posse that the trouble had died out and that they were discharged.[2]
However, the strikers had merely withdrawn from Atkinsville and returned to their encampments along the New River at Quinnimont mountain, and some marched to Stanaford, where they were taken in to the homes of friends.[2]
At Lanark, Cunningham assembled a posse of 50 special marshals on the morning of February 25, 1903, accompanied by Sheriff Cook and Howard Smith, a Baldwin–Felts detective assigned to the C&O railroad.[2]
The raiding party's version of events
The Fayette Journal, owned by coal baron Samuel Dixon, reported that "[The posse] left Lanark about 6 o'clock in the morning for the strikers' camp. The mob had taken up headquarters in a school house and had sent a challenge to the officers daring them to come near to serve any papers on the peril of getting filled up with lead."[3][2]
"The officers had stationed guards around the school house in the night and were aware of the mob's intentions. It is estimated there were about 125 of the outlaws in the house and they all had guns and plenty of ammunition. The officers halted a short distance from the school house and detective Smith and two others went up to the house and called upon the party to surrender."[2]
"For answer the outlaws began shooting at Smith and four bullets were put through his overcoat. One shot struck him on the finger. When the shooting started from the building the officers opened fire and for about five minutes both sides were working every gun and over a thousand shots were fired."[2]
"The fire was too hot for the outlaw gang and about half of them rushed out of the building and surrendered. The others took to the woods where they were pursued by officers, and many of them arrested. Over 50 were arrested."[2]
An eyewitness accounting of events
The Charleston Daily Gazette gave a different description of the battle:[4][2]
"....It was a dramatic as well as a tragic scene, according to the story of an eye-witness who took no part in the fight, but stood not far away and watched the progress, and who related it to a Gazette reporter yesterday [26 February]."[2]
"'The parties wanted had been located in certain houses in the village, said he, 'and the deputy and his posse went into the camp within a few hundred yards, so as to be ready to make an early morning charge before those wanted could get away. The posse was divided into five parties which marched to different sides of the town and then all closed in at the same time. It was not yet light enough to distinguish anything more that the shadowy outlines of the men when they had gotten a few yards into the town to where I was standing, go to a house, stop a moment then go in."[2]
"Soon afterwards I could see other forms emerge from other houses and run toward the one into which the officers had gone. A moment after I could see the men come from the house, then I saw the flash of fire and heard the boom of a gun, then came its answering boom, and the fight was on."[2]
"'From doors and windows guns were stuck out and fired as soon as stuck. Pretty soon the other four parties joined in the firing and from every side of the town came the flash of fire, the ringing of rifles and the booming of shotguns as the fight became general. Soon I could see figures of men retreating to the woods and firing as they went. A line formed upon a low ridge slightly above the town, and began firing on a party of officers on lower ground. They were answered by a line from another ridge beyond the party in the low ground, but the range was too great, and no damage was done that could be seen. The three men killed were all in one house, and in the house six others were wounded....'"[2]