[2] Coal operators paid private detectives as well as public law enforcement agents to ensure that union organizers were kept out of the region.

Mining families lived under the terror of Baldwin–Felts detective agents who were professional strikebreakers under the hire of coal operators.

During that dispute,[clarification needed] agents drove a heavily armored train through a tent colony at night, opening fire on women, men, and children with a machine gun.

Certain aspects of Mingo made it more attractive to union leaders than neighboring Logan County, which was under the control of the vehemently anti-union Sheriff Don Chafin and his deputized army.

At the Stone Mountain Coal Company mine near Matewan, every single worker unionized, and was subsequently fired and evicted.

[4] The coal wars of the late nineteenth to early twentieth century were a particularly important part of West Virginia's State History.

The result of the battle was a loss for the West Virginia miners, and the crushing of organized labor aspirations in the state.