column until it reached fifteen to twenty thousand men. Informed of "Blizzard's Army," Secretary of War Weeks directed General Read, on August 23, to place the Nineteenth Infantry in readiness, and sent Major Thompson to Charleston to investigate. Realizing that two years of cumulative "insurrectionary fury" were about to explode in the coalfields, Governor Morgan, on August 25, asked President Warren Harding for one thousand troops and military aircraft. According to Morgan "the miners had been `inflamed and infuriated by speeches of radical officers and leaders'." Learning that Morgan had taken what appeared to the president as only slow and halting steps to organize a National Guard, Harding withheld aid pending reports from his military advisors. Initial reports from Major Thompson minimized the need for federal troops, butin face of continued requests for help, Secretary of War Weeks determined further information was needed.26

On August 25, Secretary Weeks, with the approval of President Harding, sent Brigadier General Henry H. Bandholtz, Commander of the Military District of Washington and former Provost Marshal for the American Expeditionary Force in France, to investigate the West Virginia situation. The fifty-six year old general carried with him a mandate to determine whether the use of federal troops was necessary or the mere threat to use federal military force would suffice in restoring order. When his train arrived in Charleston in the early morning hours of August 26, 1921, Bandholtz immediately conferred with Thompson, Morgan, Keeney and Mooney. Armed with the authority of the White House and the War Department, Bandholtz wasted