President Harding intervened in the West Virginia Coal Wars and declared that if miners did not disperse near Logan, where they were fighting a much smaller force led by a local sheriff but equipped with machine guns and aircraft, that he would deploy Federal troops to the area.
A battle did ensue that day when 75 miners led by Reverend John Wilburn probed the operators/sheriffs line, resulting in a confused small battle and several deaths.
The entire matter was a dispute between union and non-union miners, and the owners of the mine. One badly wounded non-union miner was flatly executed by a union miner.
This is interesting in part as people who imagine that the past was better than current times often omit things like this. It's impossible to imagine private warfare of this type today.
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