Based on the life of West Virginia coal miner and moonshiner Edward Peter Burdiss, this volume transports readers to the early years of the coal mining industry, including the history of coal mining, children coal miners, mine wars, and life in the coal camps of the early 1900s. Edward Burdiss went to work in the coal mines of West Virginia at the age of eleven to help support his family. He became a moonshiner during prohibition for the same reason, and was considered the greatest rumrunner in the history of Raleigh County, WV. His story personifies the spirit and the struggle of coalminers and moonshiners.