County force was unwilling to relinquish the commanding heights of Blair Mountain, and the miners feared that their withdrawal would precipitate new raids by Sheriff Chafin and Captain Brockus. Arriving in Charleston at 11:30 a.m., General Bandholtz carried with him a second proclamation that reflected the belated realization of President Harding and Secretary of War Weeks that the 1866 decision in Ex Parte Milligan after the Civil War prohibited "martial law . . . where the courts are open and in the proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction."38

On September 1-2, intermittent skirmishing took place as the miners probed the positions of the defending force. Not content with rifle and machine gun fire to repulse the miners, the coal company operators associated with the Logan County force atpreviously selected for the task, to West Virginia. Eleven officers and 201 enlisted men of the Nineteenth Infantry and 15 officers and 224 enlisted men of the Tenth Infantry Regiments came by rail from Camp Sherman and Columbus Barracks, Ohio. The first troops of the Nineteenth Infantry arrived in West Virginia on September 2. From Camp Knox, Kentucky, General Bandholtz ordered 36 officers and 384 men of the Fortieth Infantry Regiment to West Virginia, while further orders prompted the dispatch of 47 officers and 158 men of the Twenty-sixth Infantry Regiment from Camp Dix, New Jersey. In addition to the above forces, all of which arrived on September 3, a detachment of Chemical Warfare troops equipped with tear gas were dispatched from Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland. All told, General