the popular chief of police enraged grief-stricken union miners and their sympathizers throughout southern West Virginia.24

Capitalizing on the miners' outrage, Frank Keeney, UMW District 17 president, organized a rally in Charleston and called for a march against the coal operators. On August 7, one thousand miners presented Governor Morgan with a resolution calling for an end to martial law in Mingo County. By that date, nearly one hundred and thirty miners had been arrested and held without charges. When the governor refused to rescind state-imposed martial law, Keeney called upon the miners to assemble on August 20 at Marmet, just south of Charleston. From that location, along the banks of Lens Creek in Kanawha County, Keeney hoped to march thousands of miners sixty-five miles to Logan County, andfrom there to Mingo. Keeney's objectives remain uncertain, but evidence supports the idea that he hoped a gun battle would ensue eliminating thirty-four year old Sheriff Don Chafin and enough mine company guards and private detectives to open the area for union organizers. If that failed, at least the march and ensuing violence would force federal intervention which the miners considered preferable to bossism or state enforced martial law.25

On August 20, 1921, nearly five thousand miners, armed with rifles and an old machine gun with three thousand rounds of ammunition, assembled at Marmet. Their commander, "General" Bill Blizzard, a twenty-eight year old man of proven leadership in District 17, formed the men into a column and began the march toward Logan. Along the way new recruits swelled the