Originally Posted by
Randy Harris
He was a tough dude...but a lot of guys back then were tough dudes. It was a hard life. He had enlisted in the Army 28th Infantry Co C and shipped out from the Presidio to the Philippines in 1901. That was Moro Insurrection duty.... His name was William Elias Hicks.
According to Wikipedia......The Regiment first saw combat service from December 1901 to January 1904 during the Philippine Insurrection, where the Regiment was heavily involved in counter guerilla operations. Elements of the Regiment were first deployed into the rebellious provinces on Luzon Island, but most of the 28th Infantry's action was seen later, on the island of Mindanao. The Regiment subdued the Moro guerrillas at Pantar, then at the walled city of Jolo, most notably leading the American assault during the savage battle of Suliman Mountain.
He was wounded in combat (and apparently pretty badly but recovered). He was discharged March of 1905 . He came back home (Alabama was home) and went to work as a coal miner and that is what set the stage for the events of July 28 1920 . Carbon Hill Alabama was the site of a Coal Miner strike by workers of the Galloway Coal Company. The union miners were striking for better conditions and the mine had brought in "scabs" to work the mine while the miners were on strike. A black miner named Arthur Hughes was in the Galloway Coal Commissary berating the replacement miners. Deputy Ben Barrett "had a few words with the negro and struck him" according to the newspaper ( The Mountain Eagle of Jasper and Walker County Alabama) . Hicks heard the account from Hughes and approached Barrett asking him why he struck Hughes and "a row resulted". He claimed Barrett called him a very bad name and went home to get his 2 automatic pistols to make Barrett apologize....It was different time back then and this is HORRIBLE decision making in our current times.....as to the pistols we know at least 1 was a very new Colt 1911 manufactured in June 1920.
Between six and seven pm Hicks and several other men were at the public well. Deputy Barrett and a policeman Baker came walking up supposedly to disarm Hicks as they had heard he was armed. According to the paper Hicks' friends say Barrett opened fire and shot twice and wounded Hicks before Hicks fired. "Barrett was then shot twice through the body and staggered up onto the sidewalk tried to lean against a building and sank down expiring in a moment" (looking for a place to nap from earlier in this thread?). After Barrett fell Hicks turned his attention to Baker who had stepped behind a post and started firing at Hicks. According to the paper......"No doubt Baker saved his life by stepping behind a post as Hicks was a crack shot having served as a sharpshooter in the Spanish American War". Finding his guns empty Hicks crossed the railroad and started out in a southerly direction reloading as he went.
Alexander McDade , a non union miner who had been at work that day tried to halt Hicks and when he refused to halt McDade stepped behind a tree and shot him. Hicks said "Come out from behind that tree and fight fair" and according to the paper..."McDade sacrificed his life by taking the dare for he stepped out from behind the tree and and Hicks opened fire, hitting him every shot. Running up to McDade Hicks hit him on the head with a pistol saying "You killed me and I'll kill you"..... (or as Nathan Bedford Forrest once said "No damn man kills me and lives"....)
"A number of people followed Hicks into the bushes and shot him down with shotguns. With his body riddled with bullets the man lived until the next day and died at a Birmingham infirmary."... according to the paper. According to death certificate he was wounded in leg, abdomen and chest. He died 26 hours after the gunfight and according to family history he died from lead poisoning, not from the wounds themselves (my guess is the wounds got septic) and they brought his body and guns home on a railroad hand cart. He left behind a wife and 7 children one of whom was my mother's mother. Now, 100 years later we all agree that fighting to the death over an insult is clearly not the best course of action, but back then in that place and time honor was something people were willing to die for. Right or wrong, it is just the way it was. For similar contemporary historical incidents check out the Matewan Massacre in West Virginia earlier that year (May 19, 1920) where mining town labor issues led to gunfire.
Interstingly enough there is a mention of this in the McDade family of Walker County Alabama history where it says....
"JAMES OLIVER McDADE, born September 15, 1894; died July 28, 1920, buried in the McDade Cemetery. This young man was killed by WILLIAM HICKS, who shot him in self defense.
HICKS became a target after shooting and killing a mining deputy, BEN BARNETT, after an argument escalated over the deputy beating and kicking. ARTHUR HUGHES who was on strike with the miners in Carbon Hill, AL. HICKS, a Union supporter was the only person to come to the man's aid."
This account puts a little different spin on it than the newspaper article and while I would expect a family history from the family of someone my relative killed to be something more.....hostile...I found this to be pretty fair and most likely true as it matches with our own oral family history that Hicks had stepped in to defend Hughes even though he was a black man in 1920s Alabama because "everyone is black in the coal mines" and that is what started the snowball rolling down hill that became the avalanche that left 3 people dead (and a bystander wounded).
From our perspective, this is why I am so big on actually hitting what you actually aim at and aiming at important stuff because rolling out a target the size of a bedsheet and declaring any hit on it as "good enough" is a terrible disservice to students. We know there are some hard tough dudes out there, Look at William Hicks. He was a combat veteran of the Moro insurrection who had been wounded and knew what getting injured in combat was like who worked in a coal mine, had a strong sense of honor and willing to fight to the death for it.......not the kind of guy that is going to curl up and go fetal from a wound to the butt cheek. This guy was shot first by BOTH guys he killed that day...yet he killed them both nearly instantly so maybe there is something to what the bullets actually punch holes in not just hitting them "somewhere".
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