IV
The miners’ tented camp at Holly Grove had become an eyesore to the representatives of feudalism. They determined to wipe it out and thus terrorize the strikers into submission. Their plan was diabolical, medieval in its brutality. An armored train was equipped at Huntington, W. Va., for the purpose. On the night of February 7, 1913, the special crew went aboard.
The miners were peacefully in their tents or houses that night, many asleep, when between ten and eleven o’clock the armored train moved slowly at a speed of about seven miles an hour through Holly Grove pouring a fusillade of bullets upon the unsuspecting and unprepared inhabitants. Cesco Estep, who was sitting with his family by the fire when the shooting began, called upon his family to take refuge in the cellar and led the way. He fell dead a few feet from the cellar door. His wife, who was about to become a mother, fled for her life. One woman was shot in the feet. About fifteen shots passed through the Estep house, which sheltered women and children that night. The woman was shot in her own home. Bullets passed through many houses and tents, setting fire to a store, and the marvel was that many were not murdered. The miners, as quickly as they could recover from their surprise, in a few instances returned the fire, and this was the occasion for much indignation in the capital, where it was understood that the miners had brutally attacked an armored train. The train passed on and was dismounted in the C. & O. shops in Richmond. This incident was something novel in the history of industrial warfare in America.