The Hatfields and the McCoys (16 page)

On the witness stand, Wall Hatfield had the appearance of a man in mortal fear of an unfavorable verdict. He gave details of the manner in which he learned of the attack upon Ellison and the arrest of the McCoys. He traced his subsequent actions in overtaking the officers conducting the McCoys to Pikeville. Wall explained his insistence that the McCoys stand trial in the district in which the altercation occurred as deriving from his desire to obtain testimony from Dr. Jim Rutherford and his Uncle Valentine, also called Wall, Hatfield.

Wall described the journey to the Reverend Anderson Hatfield's residence and Devil Anse's command to friends of the Hatfields to fall in line, but he could not remember crossing the river with the Hatfield party. Insisting that all he ever wanted was a civil trial for the McCoys, he maintained that while he was at the schoolhouse on Mate Creek he had tried in every way to prevent harm to the McCoys and that he had never told Randolph McCoy or any other person that if Ellison died or if a rescue or ambush party appeared the McCoy brothers would be shot. He admitted asking Joe Davis whether he had seen young Randolph McCoy cut Ellison, but he emphatically denied that he had administered any oath of secrecy to those present after the killing of the McCoys.

Although he admitted that he “did not visit the Ky. side very much,” Wall declared that he never made any effort to avoid arrest. He stated that he wrote Perry Cline that he desired to surrender and that before his arrest he also notified Frank Phillips and Jim McCoy that he would give himself up but preferred to do so just before the trial. Wall acknowledged that while he was confined to the Pike County jail the authorities had allowed him to go about town for several days and that he had held a conversation with “Aunt Sarah McCoy” at the home of Perry Phillips, with Andy Casebolt present. At the time, he declared, Sarah McCoy, in response to questioning, confessed that she had some recollection of Tolbert's telling her at the schoolhouse that Wall had treated her boys with kindness and of his asking her to be kind to “Uncle Wall.”

Several witnesses spoke in Wall's defense. Jack Puckett testified that Wall did not get into the line formed at the Reverend Anderson Hatfield's in response to the command of Devil Anse. The minister himself stated that Wall had urged the McCoy boys to go into town immediately after their arrest lest the Hatfields descend upon them and that Randolph McCoy, his son Jim, and one other person had responded that the McCoys had axes and other things to fight with. John C. France remembered Wall's promising that not “a hair on their [McCoy] heads should be hurt here,” while Daniel J. Wolford asserted that Wall had stopped Bill Tom Hatfield and others from killing the McCoy brothers on Mate Creek. Finally, John Scott swore that Jim McCoy himself had said that Wall did not have time to get more than “fernent” the place where his brothers were shot.

Frank Phillips testified that he arrested Wall at his home in West Virginia. On the day of the arrest he and Jim McCoy received a letter from Wall stating his willingness to surrender and asking that he not be taken until just before the convening of the court. Phillips, who was then within three miles of Wall's house, ignored the request and made the arrest. Wall accompanied him to the residence of the Mahon brothers. Phillips stated that he took Wall to the Pike County jail and received the jailers receipt for him. Following the testimony of Phillips, Andy Casebolt confirmed that he was present when Wall talked with Sarah McCoy and that he remembered her saying that she believed she recalled Tolbert's request that they be considerate of “Uncle Wall.”
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The jury found Wall guilty and recommended life imprisonment. When the judge refused to grant a motion for a new trial, Wall appealed the verdict on the ground that it was against law and evidence, that the jury had not received proper instructions, and that the jurors had not been kept together after their impanelment. Judge John M. Rice, on September 5, 1889, suspended judgment for sixty days and proceeded with the trials of the other defendants. Alex Messer, Dock Mahon, and Plyant Mahon were tried simultaneously, and all received sentences of life imprisonment.
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In addition to the trial of those indicted in 1882 for the murder of the McCoy brothers, eight of the Hatfields and their friends were indicted on August 24, 1888, for the murder of Alifair McCoy during the attack on the McCoy family on January 1, 1888. They included Cap, Johnse, Robert, and Elliott Hatfield, Ellison Mounts, French Ellis, Charles Gillespie, and Thomas Chambers. Gillespie demanded and received a separate trial. Mounts, however, had already confessed that he killed Alifair and entered a plea of guilty. On September 4 the jury returned a verdict of guilty and recommended the death penalty. Mounts attempted, through W. M. Connolly, his court-appointed attorney, to withdraw his plea of guilty. He contended that he had expected mercy in return for his confession and that the tearful testimony of Sarah McCoy had aroused the “passions and prejudices” of the jury against him “to a degree beyond their natural reasoning powers” and resulted in a more severe penalty. He hoped that a fair and impartial trial would extend his life “until the great and good giver of all lives shall take it away.” Judge Rice refused Mounts's request and directed that he be confined to the Pike County jail until December 3, when he should be hanged.
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Only one of the defendants in the murder cases made a statement at the time of sentencing. When Alex Messer heard the judge sentence him to “hard labor for the period of your natural life,'” he rose and, addressing the bench, declared, “Hit's mighty little work I can do, Jedge. Hain't been able to work none o' any ‘count for several years.” Messer's plaintive statement injected a note of unintended humor into the grim proceedings of the court, and the judge had to rap for silence.
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At five o'clock in the afternoon of September 5, the day sentences were pronounced, three carriages left Pikeville with all the condemned men except Ellison Mounts. Guarded by twenty-five mounted citizens, the procession moved across rugged mountain terrain to Prestonsburg, where Sheriff W. H. Maynard, who was in charge, picked up a rumor that Cap Hatfield and a band of Knox countians might attempt a rescue of the prisoners. Maynard hastened the men on to the town of Richardson and placed them aboard a train on the Chatteroi Railroad. He and three guards, C. T. Yost, Jim McCoy, and Frank Phillips, continued with the prisoners to Ashland, where they entrained, by way of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, for Lexington.

At Ashland, Phillips spotted James Vance, the son of the leader of the same name who had met his death at the hands of a Kentucky posse, and made gestures of friendship. The younger Vance, however, carried deep hatred in his heart and would have assaulted Phillips had others not restrained him. Maynard placed Wall Hatfield and Dock and Plyant Mahon, who had been granted appeals, in the Lexington jail and continued on to Frankfort with Alex Messer.
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The hopes of the condemned men faded on November 9, 1889, when the Kentucky Court of Appeals rendered its decision. It declared that “to find … a more inhuman murder we must leave our civilization and resort to the annals of savage life. It is needless, however, to comment on the enormity of the crime or the helpless condition of the young victims of this murderous band. The law has been enforced in these cases, and in its administration the appellants can truly say the jury inflicting the punishment by imprisonment for life ‘had tempered justice with mercy.' The judgment of conviction as to each one of the appellants is affirmed. “
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Ten days later Devil Anse himself appeared in the United States District Court at Charleston, West Virginia, on a moonshine charge, which, strangely enough, had connections with the feud. In May 1889 Dave Stratton went to Charleston and presented evidence to a grand jury which resulted in Devil Anse's indictment. Stratton and some of the detectives hoped to force Devil Anse to make a trip to Charleston and to intercept him en route.

The federal judge, John J. Jackson, Jr., commonly known as the “Iron Judge,'” recognized the danger which Devil Anse faced. A member of one of the most distinguished families of West Virginia and a relative of Judge William L. Jackson, who proved so effective in Breathitt County, he had a reputation as a choleric, opinionated man. With his arching forehead, deep-sunken and piercing eyes, hooked nose, and long gray whiskers, Jackson represented the very epitome of determination and decision, and his confrontation with Devil Anse promised to be a memorable occasion.

As so often happens, these two strong men of very different backgrounds treated each other with respect. Having no alternative except to summon Devil Anse to Charleston, Jackson sent his chief marshal, Columbus, or “Lum,” Sehon, to assure him that he would have protection during his journey not only against his enemies but also against detectives who aspired to capture him. Much to the surprise of many people, Devil Anse received the marshal with courtesy and agreed to appear in court if he could provide his own guard, a condition which the astonished marshal readily accepted.

During his stay in Charleston and the trial Devil Anse found himself treated more as a visiting dignitary than as a man charged with a federal offense. Sehon, keeping his promise, provided a special guard both inside and outside the courtroom, but the Hatfields kept their weapons by their sides at all times, even during the trial. Curious spectators, who came to see the legendary clan leader, found, to their surprise, not an uncouth mountaineer but a benign-looking old man dressed in a navy blue suit, a blue shirt with open collar, and trousers stuffed into the tops of his half-length boots.

Pleased with the attention that he received, Devil Anse gave an interview to a reporter for che
Wheeling Intelligencer.
He began his narrative with his enlistment in the Confederate Army, mentioned his service as leader of a Home Guard unit in which some of the McCoys then allegedly trying to kill him had served under him, and declared that the Hatfield and McCoy families had been good friends until the controversy over the hog. According to the reporter, Devil Anse stated that Ellison Hatfield had sworn out a warrant for Paris and Sam McCoy, who had killed Bill Staton following the incident. Accounts of the relations of Johnse with Rose Anna and Nancy McCoy, the murder of the three McCoy brothers, and other aspects of the feud, however, were at such variance with the facts and with Devil Anse's knowledge of events that one can only surmise that the reporter hopelessly garbled his information.

The close of the trial, which lasted only one day, brought a new excitement, for many spectators knew that both state officials and detectives hoped to capture Devil Anse the moment federal authorities released him. To prevent such a move, Judge Jackson decreed that no state official should lay a hand on Hatfield and directed the federal marshal to provide enough deputies to assure Devil Anse safe conduct until he left the railroad at Logan. Jackson then declared, “When Hatfield gets back to his home, I certainly have no objection to any of you arresting him who may want to try it,” a remark which brought a roar of laughter at the expense of the enemies of the patriarch of the Hatfield clan.
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Meanwhile, Ellison Mounts, confined to the Pike County jail, granted an interview to a reporter, which appeared in the
Wheeling Intelligencer
on October 21. The reporter found Mounts loquacious and cooperative. He quoted the condemned man as saying, “I don't blame the McCoys. The Hatfields brought me to this.” Mounts stated that he saw the three McCoy brothers shot and witnessed the attack on the McCoy family at their home. He insisted, “My guilt was not as great as Alex Messer's, or Wall Hatfield's, or the Whitts', who turned state's evidence.” Then, in words that had more of the ring of phrasing of the reporter than of the uneducated Mounts, he complained, “Yet my life pays forfeit, while they are permitted to live. No, I do not look for a commutation of sentence. Nobody seems to be doing anything for me.”

Except for the interview with Mounts and the trial of Devil Anse, very little news came out of the feud country. Reports that Julia Ann McCoy and John Hand, a relative of the Hatfields, had been shot at their own wedding proved patently untrue, as did a story that a mob had organized to lynch Sam Mahon, whose illness had resulted in a postponement of his trial. Similarly, efforts of some newspapermen to connect disturbances in Lincoln County, West Virginia, with the Hat-field-McCoy feud lacked credibility. Major J. C. Alderson, who visited Lincoln County in November 1889, declared that all the reports from that quarter were false and that there was no more peaceful locality in the United States. Alderson considered the attempt to relate the alleged troubles there with the Hatfield-McCoy vendetta “absurd.” He correctly blamed much of the misinformation and wild rumor on “penny-a-liners at Huntington, Charleston and other points,” who had taken advantage of the eastern press and who deserved exposure. He failed to recognize, perhaps, that the Hatfield-McCoy feud had gripped the imagination of the American people and was already on the way to becoming a part of the mythology of the southern Appalachians.
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13

THE WAR SPIRIT ABATES

M
ANY RESIDENTS of both Pike and Logan counties predicted that the Hatfields would never suffer Ellison Mounts to die on the gallows. His execution was originally scheduled for December 3, 1889. Under Kentucky law, however, Mounts automatically had thirty days to file a petition for a rehearing, but he filed no petition. On the evening of December 17 Governor Buckner set the hanging for February 18, 1890. The delays in the execution and the appearance in Pikeville in late January of mysterious strangers, who claimed to be tracing persons illegally cashing checks and horse thieves, strengthened expectations that the Hatfields would attempt to rescue Mounts.
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