including Matewan Mayor Cable C. Testerman, Lee and Albert Felts, five other Baldwin-Felts employees and two miners. In the wake of the "Matewan Massacre," which made Sid Hatfield a folk hero to miners throughout the state and somewhat of a national celebrity, emboldened miners on July 1 initiated strikes all along the Tug River Valley in West Virginia and Kentucky. Concomitant with this escalating strike activity was an increase in the number of violent incidents by both miners and company guards and detectives. By mid-summer, coal production in the region had ground to a halt.9

On August 28, 1920, Governor Cornwell asked the new commander of the army's Central Department, Major General George A. Read, for a battalion of troops to guard the mines of southern West Virginia. GeneralRead responded by forwarding orders to the Second and Fortieth Infantry Regiments at Camp Sherman, Ohio. Troops under command of Colonel Samuel Burkhardt were dispatched immediately under the policy of direct access and arrived in Williamson on August 29. The next day, a force of five hundred regulars kept the peace by conducting squad-size patrols near the Mingo County coal mines. Federal troops soon saw action after their arrival and employed "classic infantry tactics" on two occasions when fired upon by sizeable groups of armed miners at the Howard Colliery and at Thacker. Although gunfire was exchanged in these incidents, no casualties were reported on either side.10

While federal troops were involved in confrontations with armed miners, relations between the regulars and the local populace were generally cordial. Both