Coal Creek War

Convicts placed on railroad cars by striking miners for transport out of the Coal Creek Valley.

In 1890, the election of several members of the labor-friendly Tennessee Farmers' Alliance— among them Governor John P. Buchanan— to the state government emboldened miners in the Coal Creek Valley to make several demands. One of the key demands was payment in cash rather than company scrip, which could either be used only at company-owned stores with marked-up prices or be redeemed for cash at a percentage of its value. Miners also demanded they be allowed to use their own checkweighmen— the specialists who weighed the coal and determined how much a particular miner had earned— instead of checkweighmen hired by the company. Since state laws already barred scrip payment and company-hired checkweighmen, most mine owners accepted the demands, though they were in the midst of an economic downturn. However, the Tennessee Coal Mining Company (TCMC), which operated a mine near Briceville, rejected the demands, and on April 1, 1891, shut down operations. Two months later, the company demanded its miners sign an iron-clad contract before returning to work. The miners refused.[5]

On July 5, TCMC reopened the Briceville mine using convicts it had leased from TCI. With tensions already high, the company tore down miners' houses in Briceville to build a stockade for its convict laborers. Miners and local merchants met on July 14 to determine a course of action. It was rumored a larger group of convicts would arrive the next day. That night about 300 armed miners— probably led by Knights of Labor organizers Eugene Merrell, George Irish, and Marcena Ingraham— surrounded the Briceville stockade. The stockade's guards surrendered without a fight, and the convicts were marched to Coal Creek, where they were loaded onto a train and sent to Knoxville.[6]

Drawing in Harper's Weekly showing miners gathered at Thistle Switch on July 16, 1891.

After seizing the Briceville stockade, the Coal Creek miners sent a telegram to Governor Buchanan, stating their actions were taken to defend their property and wages and asking for his intervention. On July 16, Buchanan, escorted by three Tennessee state militia companies, two from Chattanooga and one from Knoxville, led the convicts back to Briceville.[6] At Thistle Switch, a railroad stop near Fraterville, several hundred angry miners confronted the governor and demanded he address them.[1] Buchanan told the miners he was a champion of labor, but as governor he was obligated to enforce the laws and pleaded for calm and patience. After the governor's speech, Merrell rebutted it, claiming that the governor had not bothered to enforce laws regarding scrip or checkweighmen and calling the state government a "disgrace to a civilized country." Later that night, shots were fired at the stockade, startling the governor, who had remained in the area until the following day. The governor left 107 militiamen under Colonel Granville Sevier, a great-grandson of John Sevier, to guard the stockade.[5]

On the morning of July 20, an estimated 2,000 miners armed with shotguns, rifles, and pistols again surrounded the Briceville stockade. The miners' ranks had been bolstered by an influx of miners from the border town of Jellico and several hundred miners from Kentucky, some of whom had successfully removed convicts from two Kentucky mines five years earlier. After gaining an assurance that no company property would be damaged, Sevier, seeing the futility of resisting such a large force, surrendered. The miners again marched the convicts to Coal Creek and put them on a train back to Knoxville. Later that day, the miners marched on the Knoxville Iron Company mine near Coal Creek, which also used convict labor, forced the guards at its stockade to surrender, and likewise sent its convicts to Knoxville.[6]

Grand mass meeting with organizers Eugene Merrell and George Irish.

On July 21, 1891, Governor Buchanan travelled to Knoxville, where he again summoned the militia. Over a four-day period, the governor met with a committee of local figures friendly to the miners' interests, namely attorney J.C.J. Williams, Knoxville Journal editor William Rule, and United Mine Workers organizer William Webb. On July 23, Williams and Webb went to Coal Creek to address the miners, echoing the governor's plea for patience. Williams assured the miners that the governor supported an end to convict-leasing, but said it would take time to change the law. The miners thus agreed to a 60-day truce after the governor assured them he would call a special session of the Tennessee state legislature and recommend the lease law be repealed. The convict laborers returned on July 25. During the truce, Merrell and Irish traveled around the state, giving speeches to rally support for the miners' cause.[6]

On August 31, Buchanan called a special session of the state legislature to consider the convict lease issue. One question before the legislature was whether or not the state could terminate the leasing contract it had signed, which did not expire until December 31, 1895. Another issue was what to do with convicts should the convict-leasing system be terminated. After three weeks of debate, the legislature adjourned on September 21, taking little action other than making it a felony to interfere with the leasing system and authorizing the governor to take any necessary action to protect the system.[5] After this setback, the miners held out hope with the state's court system, which considered a case brought by the Tennessee Commissioner of Labor, George Ford, who claimed the poor conditions in which the inmates worked and lived violated state law. The case moved quickly through the courts, reaching the Tennessee State Supreme Court in October 1891. Chief Justice Peter Turney, however, ruled against the miners, essentially citing the sanctity of contracts.[7]

Drawing in Harper's Weekly showing Militia Hill as viewed from the Coal Creek stockade.

On October 28, 1891, the committee representing the Coal Creek miners' interests announced they were resigning, denounced the legislature, and issued a subtle call to arms. Shortly thereafter, on October 31, a group of miners burned the TCMC stockade at Briceville and seized the Knoxville Iron Company stockade at Coal Creek. Several company buildings were destroyed or looted, but the stockade was spared. Over 300 convicts were freed and supplied with fresh food and civilian clothes by the insurgents, who urged them not to commit further crimes. On November 2, another band burned the stockade at Oliver Springs, freeing 153 convicts. In response to the outbreak, a second truce was negotiated in which the miners agreed to allow the return of convicts to Coal Creek and Oliver Springs, but not Briceville, where TCMC president B.A. Jenkins had grown disgruntled with convict labor. The state dispatched eighty-four militiamen under the command of J. Keller Anderson to guard the convict stockade at Coal Creek and a small force to guard the one at Oliver Springs. Anderson built Fort Anderson on what came to be known as "Militia Hill", overlooking Coal Creek via the Walden Ridge water gap, which was outfitted with a Gatling gun, and the convicts returned to the Coal Creek Valley on January 31, 1892.[7]

Relations between the militiamen, most of whom were from middle or west Tennessee, and the people of Coal Creek soured quickly. Merrell wrote to Governor Buchanan complaining of the troops' behavior, and for several months miners and soldiers indiscriminately shot at one another, with either side blaming the other for provoking it.[7] In the meantime, Merrell and TCMC president Jenkins had made amends, and the two began promoting a new cooperative style of mining operations favorable to both miners and managers. By summer 1892, dozens of newspapers and magazines nationwide, including The New York Times, the Alabama Sentinel, and Harper's Weekly, had sent correspondents to the Coal Creek region to cover the conflict. Sentiment was initially pro-miner, although as violent outbreaks continued and militiamen were killed, sentiment began to shift.[3] The Nashville Banner called the miners "thieves, robbers, ruffians, and outlaws,"[1] while the Chattanooga Republican accused the state legislature of being "inhuman."[1] The two Knoxville papers, the Journal and the Tribune, initially praised the miners' decisiveness and derided the government's ineffectiveness, but their sentiments shifted after the stockades were burned in October 1891.[6][7]

A drawing from Harper's Weekly showing Coal Creek miners firing on Fort Anderson in 1892.

While the East Tennessee mining companies were moving away from convict labor, the state's primary lessee, TCI, remained stalwartly dedicated to using convict leasing at its South Tennessee mines. When Cumberland Coal balked at using convicts at its Oliver Springs mine, TCI purchased the mine's lease, giving it a direct foothold in the Anderson County coalfields. As the company minimized the work of its free laborers, however, tensions steadily rose. On August 13, 1892, free miners in Grundy County tore down the TCI stockade in Tracy City, and on August 15 removed the convicts from the TCI stockade at Innman in Marion County.[8] These actions reignited resentment in East Tennessee, and on August 17, a group of miners led by John Hatmaker attacked the TCI stockade at Oliver Springs but were beaten back by the guards. Shortly afterward, a larger group of miners reconvened at the stockade, and its guards finally surrendered. The stockade was burned, and the convicts were put on a train and sent to Nashville. The following day, militia commander Keller Anderson was captured at Coal Creek, and the miners ordered Fort Anderson's second-in-command, Lieutenant Perry Fyffe, to surrender. After Fyffe refused, the miners charged the fort, killing two militiamen, but failing to capture the position.[9]

In response to this latest uprising, Governor Buchanan dispatched 583 militiamen under the command of General Samuel T. Carnes to East Tennessee. He also ordered sheriffs of affected counties to form posses. Most county sheriffs— including the Anderson and Morgan sheriffs— ignored this order or made lackluster attempts to execute it, although several dozen volunteers were amassed in the Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville areas. A group of Knoxville volunteers marched to relieve the besieged Fort Anderson, but as they descended Walden Ridge, they were ambushed by a group of miners, killing two of the volunteers and sending the rest fleeing back toward Clinton. Carnes arrived on August 19, and quickly restored order and obtained Anderson's release. He then initiated a sweep of the region from Coal Creek to Jellico, arresting hundreds of miners deemed assisting in the insurrection.[9] The militia used the Briceville Community Church as a temporary jail for those it arrested.[10]

The Coal Creek Watershed Foundation presently works to preserve the legacy of the Coal Creek War and its impact on the area and has taken the initiative in locating the remains of Fort Anderson and several poorly-marked or unmarked convict graves near the old Knoxville Iron Company mine. Drummond's Trestle, the railroad bridge where miner Richard Drummond was hanged in 1893, still stands near the junction of Highway 116 and Lower Briceville Highway, and is the subject of a local legend regarding Drummond's ghost.[1] Much of the land purchased by the state in 1896 for the construction of Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary is now part of Frozen Head State Park.

The Coal Creek War provided inspiration for some of the earliest Appalachian coal mining protest music. Songs about the conflict include "Coal Creek Troubles," written in the wake of the conflict and recorded by Jilson Setters in 1937,[12] and a banjo tune called "Coal Creek March," which was recorded by Kentucky banjoist Pete Steele for the Library of Congress in 1938 and is still popular among bluegrass musicians. The song "Buddy Won't You Roll Down the Line", written and performed by Grand Ole Opry pioneer Uncle Dave Macon, was based on the Coal Creek War.[13]