Days of Darkness (13 page)

Whatever its causes, the bad blood between the families burst into open violence on August 7, 1882, at the Blackberry Creek precinct polling place in Pike County, Kentucky. Though they lived across the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River, in Logan (now Mingo) County, West Virginia, the Hatfields ordinarily came over for the day, since election day was a social as well as a political occasion. The women cooked a lot of food, the men brought a lot of whiskey, and there was a great deal of visiting and talking, and flirting among the young.

The Tug was more a geographic than a social boundary. Many Hatfields lived on the Kentucky side of the river, some McCoys or their relatives lived on the West Virginia side. There was quite a bit of social interplay between the two families; McCoy boys referred to Valentine (“Wall”) Hatfield as “Uncle Wall,” and two of the men who later helped beat her almost to death and burned her home called Sarah McCoy “Aunt Sally.” A Hatfield was sheriff of Pike County,
Kentucky, and several were magistrates when the feud was in full cry. Trouble-making Johnse Hatfield married Nancy McCoy. And so on. But little frictions build into major conflicts. Time and circumstance.

On this particular election day, August 7, 1882, Tolbert McCoy, with a good load of whiskey aboard, chose the occasion to demand that Elias (“Bad Lias”) Hatfield pay him the $1.75 that Tolbert claimed Lias owed him. Lias replied angrily that he had paid the debt months before. Tolbert called him a liar. Deacon Anse Hatfield (not to be confused with Devil Anse) was able to calm the two, but just then Ellison Hatfield awoke from a liquor-induced nap and called Tolbert names. Tolbert turned his wrath on Ellison. Pulling a knife, he hacked away at Ellison's stomach, while Tolbert's brothers, nineteen-year old Pharmer and fifteen-year old Randolph Jr., rushed to help him. Ellison tried to wrestle the knife away from Tolbert, but the two younger McCoys also began cutting at him. When Deacon Anse again tried to separate the battlers, Ellison grabbed a large rock. Pharmer pulled a pistol and shot Ellison in the back. Elias wrested the pistol from Pharmer and tried to shoot him, but the McCoys at that point turned and ran into the woods.

They were overtaken and placed in the custody of Pike County Justices of the Peace Joe and Tolbert Hatfield and Constable Matthew Hatfield. Figuring that the West Virginia Hatfields would soon try to avenge the shooting of Ellison, Deacon Anse urged that the McCoys be taken to the Pikeville jail at once, where they would be safe. They agreed. They never got there.

This was not the first disagreement between the two clans. Some scholars have tried to trace the feud to the Civil War, but the fact is that the majority of both Hatfields and McCoys fought for the South, though members of both clans, including Devil Anse, leader of the West Virginia clan, deserted and came home well before the war ended. Upon his return home, Devil Anse formed a unit of the Home Guards known as the Logan Wildcats, in whose ranks were several McCoys, including for a while clan leader Randal McCoy. These Home Guards were little more than bushwhackers, foraging to support their ranks and stealing livestock for which they were supposed to pay. Seven years after the war, Asa McCoy was still trying to settle a suit against various Hatfields for four of his hogs they had taken. Various members of the McCoy clan were charged with stealing everything from horses to bee gums and raw leather.

The first real trouble, however, resulted from the death of Harmon McCoy, younger brother of Randal. Unlike most of his family and neighbors, Harmon joined the Union Army. He stayed only a
year and came home after being hospitalized with a broken leg. He was not given a big welcome. In fact, he was warned that the Logan Wildcats, all ex-Confederates, would be calling on him. This alarmed him, and he hid out in a cave, where the Wildcats caught and killed him. Devil Anse and his lieutenant, Jim Vance, were the wildcats most often mentioned as the trigger men. No one was ever brought to trial for the killing, and it is doubtful if most of the McCoys cared much. But the incident created some tension between the families.

Mountain families at the time let their hogs run loose in the woods; it was cheaper and easier than keeping them penned and having to feed them. They marked their hogs with ear marks or clips so they could identify them when the hogs were rounded up for fall hog-killing. In the autumn of 1878 Floyd Hatfield rounded up his hogs and drove them to his home at Stringtown, on the Kentucky side of the Tug Fork. It was there that Randal McCoy, stopping casually on his way into Stringtown, saw a hog that he thought bore his markings, and said so, in effect accusing Hatfield of stealing his hog. This was a serious insult in the hills, and Floyd took offense, denying it heatedly. Randal, a contentious sort, went immediately to the Deacon Anse Hatfield, a justice of the peace, and brought suit against Floyd.

The trial, held in Deacon Anse's home, brought out the folks from all around. Both Hatfields and McCoys arrived in force, all heavily armed. Deacon Anse saw the danger in a decision that was bound to leave one side unhappy, and in an effort to calm the waters named a jury of six Hatfields and six McCoys, possibly hoping for a hung jury. Among the witnesses was Bill Staton, a nephew of Randal McCoy whose sister had married Ellison Hatfield, younger brother of Devil Anse. Though Staton had ties to both sides, the McCoys were outraged when he testified that he had seen Floyd Hatfield notch the hog's ear. But their anger really boiled over when the jury voted in favor of Floyd Hatfield and it was revealed that Selkirk McCoy, a juryman who was Randal's cousin, said he could find no reason to dispute Staton's word and thus had to vote for Floyd Hatfield. From then on, Selkirk was considered a traitor.

So was Bill Staton, and the McCoys made open threats that they would even the score with him. This was a typical reaction and a root cause of lawlessness in the mountains; people would take their grievances to court, but they would not accept a court ruling that went against them and would turn to direct revenge instead. When, a few weeks later, Sam and Paris McCoy ran into Staton while hunting, shooting began. When it ended, Paris was badly wounded, Staton was dead. Ellison Hatfield swore out a warrant for the arrest of Paris
and Sam, and eventually Sam was arraigned in Logan County, West Virginia before Justice of the Peace Wall Hatfield, a brother of Devil Anse. Though he was tried before a jury picked by Hatfields, Sam was acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. The McCoys were surprised but were still indignant because Sam had been arrested by West Virginia authorities, and they were not mollified by reports that Devil Anse had passed the word to the jury to go easy. The McCoys, especially Randal, seemed always to be looking for a chance to be indignant.

So the fires of hostility were smoldering when the two families met at the Blackberry Creek precinct polling place in the spring election of 1880. The West Virginia Hatfields were in good attendance, since they were kin to many of the candidates and other assorted residents, as were the McCoys. Among the visiting Hatfields were Devil Anse, his son Cap, and Johnse, the youngest son, who was not too bright and had a talent for trouble. Described by Otis Rice as “a small-boned rounder of eighteen, dressed fit to kill in yellow shoes, a mail-order suit and a celluloid collar,” Johnse was “ruddy, ham-handed, sandy-haired, with blue eyes that set the mountain belles a-flutter. He was a great fellow for putting on the dog.” Johnse had already run afoul of the law several times for moonshining, bootlegging, and fighting.

Shortly after Johnse arrived, Tolbert McCoy rode up with his sister Rose Anna riding behind him. Johnse had already met Rose Anna, a pretty, dark-haired, melancholy girl of twenty, but on this occasion she seemed to strike his eye. Johnse struck hers, too, and while the others were eating and drinking, Johnse and Rose Anna sneaked off to the bushes. There they stayed until it was dusk and the visitors had left for home. Afraid to go home, knowing what her father would say, Rose Anna let Johnse persuade her to go home with him. The Hatfields were surprised to see her, as can be imagined, but gave her a decent welcome. Devil Anse, however, put his foot down when Johnse proposed to marry Rose Anna, which probably did not disappoint Johnse too much, since he was already courting Mary Stafford and Nancy McCoy, both cousins of Rose Anna.

Randal tried to get Rose Anna to return home and sent her sisters, Alifair, Josephine, and Adelaide, to try to persuade her, but Rose Anna was smitten and did not leave the Hatfield home until she became convinced Johnse was not going to marry her. When she did leave, she did not go home but to the home of her Aunt Betty at Stringtown, where she was warmly and affectionately welcomed. She may have been pregnant.

That might have ended it, but Johnse, though he would shortly marry Rose Anna's cousin Nancy, kept hanging around near Aunt Betty's house, and poor, love-sick Rose Anna kept slipping out to see him. On one such occasion, they were surprised by old Randal and Pharmer and Jim McCoy, the latter a law officer, who grabbed Johnse and announced that they were taking him to Pikeville to answer indictments for moonshining and other capers. This might have improved matters, but muddle-headed Rose Anna, afraid that her men-folks would kill Johnse, borrowed a horse and rode off toward the Hatfields. Hearing the news, Devil Anse gathered a dozen men, including his top gunman, Jim Vance, took a shortcut, surprised the McCoys, and rescued Johnse. Fortunately, thanks in part to Jim McCoy's courage and cool head, no one was killed, but another brand had been flung on the fire.

Some accounts say that Rose Anna was pregnant at the time and that she later gave birth to a daughter who died in infancy. The
Louisville Courier-Journal
stated that Rose Anna had a boy named Melvin. Another version held that Rose Anna contracted measles and miscarried. At any rate, the following years were not happy for her. Her father never forgave her for warning the Hatfields. And in 1881 Johnse married Nancy McCoy, daughter of the slain Harmon. He lived to regret it. Nancy was as tough as Johnse was weak, and it was soon gossip that he was the worst hen-pecked man along the Tug Fork.

So there was already bad blood between the families when they met on the fateful election day on August 7, 1882, and it is puzzling why Devil Anse and his crew chose to attend. Perhaps he underestimated the resentment of the McCoys, perhaps he felt strong enough to ignore it, or perhaps he had simply been too busy to give it much thought. He was a large landowner over on the West Virginia side of the Tug Valley, and the approach of railroads into the region posed both promise and threat.

But when the McCoy boys cut and shot Ellison Hatfield, Devil Anse again became the concerned leader of his clan. A litter was put together on which Ellison was carried back across the Tug to the home of a Hatfield ally. The three McCoy boys were placed under arrest and started for the county jail at Pikeville. The justices of the peace guarding the McCoys were in no hurry and with their captives spent the night at the home of John Hatfield on Blackberry Creek. The next morning they again set out for Pikeville. They had not gone far before they were overtaken by Devil Anse and a large party of Hatfield men, who simply took the McCoys away from the justices and Old Randal, who was accompanying them. Randal rode toward Pikeville to get help.

Devil Anse and his crew took the McCoy boys across the Tug to West Virginia. With night coming on and a hard rain falling, they spent the night in an abandoned log schoolhouse. They had been there ony a few minutes when Sarah McCoy, Randal's wife and mother of the captives, and her daughter-in-law Mary, Tolbert's wife, arrived and begged to be allowed to see their boys. Wall Hatfield was opposed to the idea, but Devil Anse finally gave permission, and the two women were allowed to stay with the men for some time. Sarah was almost hysterical, crying and pleading for mercy, when someone rode up and announced that Randal McCoy was organizing a rescue party on the other side of the Tug (there was no truth to the rumor), and the women were forced to leave. Sarah came back the next morning but was not allowed to see her sons.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, August 9, 1882, Ellison Hatfield died from his wounds. When the news reached the Hatfields, Devil Anse and his followers tied the McCoy boys together and marched them down to the Tug, where they were taken across in a boat to the Kentucky side. There in a small hollow they were tied to pawpaw bushes while still tied together. Then the Hatfields stood back a few yards and shot the boys to pieces, Devil Anse leading the firing squad.

Not far away Jim McCoy heard the shooting and suspected what was happening. That night he went down to the Tug and found the bodies. One of Tolbert's hands was over his head, as if to ward off the shots, but his skull was blown almost in two. Pharmer's body was riddled. Young Randolph was still in a kneeling position, his head blown almost off.

It was a shocking bit of savagery on the part of the Hatfields, but the officials of Pike County didn't seem to have any idea of how to deal with it. Circuit Judge George Brown impaneled a grand jury that, after ten days of deliberation, returned indictments against twenty men, including Devil Anse, his brothers and sons, and various allies. Four days later Judge Brown issued warrants for seventeen others as witnesses for the state. He might as well have saved his time. When court convened in February 1883, the sheriff reported that he had been unable to arrest any of the indicted men. Even if he had had extradition papers, it is doubtful that he would have gone over into West Virginia to get the Hatfields.

Afterward, the Hatfields still came over into Kentucky, but they came in numbers, and armed. The McCoys did the same when they ventured into West Virginia. This state of affairs continued for five years.

The killing of the McCoy boys seems to have slaked Devil Anse's desire for revenge. Randal McCoy was another story. If the sheriff
would not or could not control the Hatfields, perhaps the courts could. Randal finally got in touch with Perry Cline, a Pikeville lawyer who had served in the state House of Delegates and as jailer and deputy sheriff. Cline had reportedly had some unfortunate dealings with Devil Anse over some land and may have welcomed a chance to get even. Furthermore, he still had political ambitions, and a publicized case against the Hatfields, the West Virginia savages who had murdered fine Kentucky boys, might be politically profitable.