The Feud: The Hatfields and McCoys: The True Story

by Dean King

  When the jurors returned, they pronounced Wall guilty as charged. They sentenced him to life in prison. His attorneys argued for a retrial, but this was denied. They were, however, granted an appeal, and Rice suspended the judgment for sixty days.

  With this precedent, most of the other defendants fell like dominoes. Alex Messer and Doc and Plyant Mahon were tried together. Messer confessed to the killing of Bud. They were convicted, sentenced to hard labor for life, and remanded to the state penitentiary at Frankfort.

  At this point, Messer asked to address the bench: “Hit’s mighty little work I can do, Jedge. Hain’t bin able to work none o’ any ’count for several years.”

  The judge had to pound his gavel to bring the court to order as the assembly guffawed at Messer’s concerns. Like Wall, the Mahons were granted an appeal. For his part, Bill Tom Hatfield was sentenced to life in prison. After serving six years, however, he would be pardoned. The cases of Sam Mahon, who had become very ill during his six months in jail, and Charley Gillespie were continued, to be resolved at a later date. Unlike his brothers Doc and Plyant, Sam was, in fact, innocent.

  The September 6 Wheeling Register announced the convictions and life sentences of Wall and Messer, noting that there was no way of knowing “just how many lives have been sacrificed in this famous vendetta” that had caused “so much terror” on the Kentucky border. The belief that more lives were lost in the feud than ever would be known was a contemporary one—not just an exaggerated notion that developed over time.

  THE TRIALS CONTINUED. Cotton Top, represented by attorney W. M. Connolly, was now tried for the murder of Alifair during the New Year’s Day raid. From an old and tony local family, Connolly, owner of the Pikeville hotel where John Spears had stayed and a co-owner of the newspapers there and in Lawrence, Kentucky, did little for his client. Having already confessed with no negotiation for leniency, Cotton Top was taken by surprise when the prosecution called Sally McCoy to the stand. She was the only witness, and his unease grew as she told what had happened that night, describing the brutal way her daughter had been slain and she herself had been beaten. Her testimony made a deep impact on the jurors, who deliberated for a mere forty-one minutes before pronouncing Cotton Top guilty. Then they sentenced him to death.15

  Cotton Top could have withdrawn the guilty plea at any time before the verdict, but afterward it was too late. Connolly was grossly incompetent or willing to sacrifice Cotton Top to bring the violence to a halt, and Cotton Top had been double-crossed by the county attorney, who had milked the slow-witted and cooperative Hatfield son for all the information he could get and then thrown him to the wolves. The next day, Connolly fruitlessly moved to withdraw the original plea and enter a plea of not guilty. He also filed a statement explaining that Cotton Top had been induced to enter the guilty plea believing the jury would be merciful to him and spare his life. While Cotton Top was not allowed a retrial, he was, like Wall and the Mahons, granted an appeal.16

  On October 20, Cotton Top gave an interview to a reporter from the Wheeling Intelligencer. He refused to leave his cell but invited the reporter in and lit the lamp that hung there, illuminating a dingy and stifling space. The two sat on his cot. “I don’t blame the McCoys,” Cotton Top told him. “The Hatfields brought me to this. Twice they came after me with guns, telling me to come on and take the lives of those who had killed my father.” He said that he did not expect a commutation of his sentence. “Nobody seems to be doing anything for me. My lawyers come here and talk to me; then go away and forget that I am alive.”

  Cotton Top was a “tool in the hands” of others, the reporter concluded. His hanging would not satisfy the need for justice. Still, he predicted it would be “one of the biggest events in the history of Pikeville.”17

  ON NOVEMBER 9, the appeals for Cotton Top, Wall, and the Mahons were heard in the Kentucky Court of Appeals. The Mahons’ and Wall’s cases were heard together, and they were represented by a battery of Pikeville attorneys, including A. J. Auxier, W. M. Connolly, and, most remarkably, Perry Cline, who had been retained by Wall much earlier and had chosen to stand by him despite his own feelings of enmity for Devil Anse and his disgust for the feud. The lawyers did the defendants little good. The Mahons were written off virtually in a breath: Their case, the decision said, “depends solely upon the testimony establishing their guilt. We forbear to discuss it further.” Since it involved interstate issues, Wall’s situation demanded a little more attention, but not much. The gist of his appeal lay in the fact that he was in West Virginia when the murders occurred and not in the jurisdiction of Kentucky and thus he should be tried, if anywhere, in West Virginia. The court disagreed, saying: “It is not pretended that the courts of one state can enforce its laws beyond the state boundary, but it is well settled that, where one puts into operation the force or power that causes the injury, he is responsible where the wrong is perpetrated, although he may not actually be present. If either of the appellants had stood on the Virginia [sic] shore, and shot the deceased on the Kentucky side, the offense would have been against the laws of Kentucky.”18

  The court seemed particularly inimical to Wall. “From the inception of this reckless violation of the law to its conclusion,” the “presiding judge of this murderous clan,” as the court poetically described Wall, “could at any time have stayed the hand of the murderers and saved the lives of these young men.”

  To this day, the Hatfields maintain that Wall was innocent. Wall’s grandson Estil Hatfield claimed that it was his grandfather’s infamous philandering that got him in trouble. “My grandfather loved women. And these two boys on Beech Creek wanted to be with one of his women,” he told a reporter. “So they said after the killings of the McCoy boys that they heard the hoot of an owl. My grandfather was known for that birdcall, and so he was arrested in the murders. But he wasn’t involved…. Those boys wanted him out of the picture.”19

  In the end, the court was swift and unequivocal in its opinion, affirming the lower court’s decisions and melodramatically declaring, “To find a more cruel and inhuman murder we must leave our own civilization and resort to the annals of savage life.” As far as this tribunal was concerned, the sentence of life in prison was merciful.

  Cotton Top’s appeal was no more successful. The higher court maintained that unless the defendant had an agreement from the state to reduce the punishment, which was not the case, the state had the right, even with a guilty plea, to introduce testimony showing the severity of the crime. Furthermore, since no motion was made to withdraw the plea of guilty at that time, the lower court was not in error in overruling Cotton Top’s later motion to withdraw it.20

  ON TUESDAY NIGHT, November 19, 1889, the citizens of Charleston received a shock: Devil Anse Hatfield and an entourage of armed men came riding into town. While Wall, Cotton Top, and the others were facing the wrath of the law in Kentucky, Devil Anse had his own legal challenge to confront—an indictment for selling whiskey based on the testimony of Hatfield adversary Dave Stratton.21 Dating back to the spring of the previous year, it was a lesser charge to be sure, but it was a federal one and could include a prison sentence. Devil Anse had a seemingly unlimited supply of influential friends, however, and federal judge John Jay Jackson, a Lincoln appointee known as the Iron Judge, agreed that if he would appear in his Charleston courtroom voluntarily, then the court would guarantee him protection from arrest or assassination on his journey to Charleston and back home again. Thus, even after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a case in which Governor Wilson’s refusal to honor the governor of Kentucky’s requisitions was an issue, the federal court promised Devil Anse protection against state authorities (as well as detectives and bounty hunters of all sorts). Even if Wilson wanted to, he could not arrest Devil Anse for the murders of the McCoy brothers while he was under the custody of federal marshals.21

  In conjunction with Judge Jackson, U.S. marshal Henry S. White, a Union veteran and staunch Republican who had just been appointed in Apri
l, dispatched chief deputy William J. White (no relation) to bring in Devil Anse. The chief deputy, a big, rawboned, genial man, had stormed Devil Anse’s stronghold—and sweet-talked him into submission. Based on White’s promises, Devil Anse agreed to go with him. Before they set out, however, Anse summoned five of his men, all armed with Winchesters, who he said would be coming along too. Fearing an ambush from the McCoys or bounty hunters, White hired a number of additional guards for the eighty-six-mile journey, among them Devil Anse’s cousin Jerry Hatfield, the former Pike County sheriff (who would be shot and killed four months later during an argument in a brothel).

  When the group reached Charleston, Henry White, a small and indomitable man who in addition to being a U.S. marshal was a successful merchant, railroad representative, timberman, and state legislator, took Devil Anse into custody and assigned twenty-five special deputies to keep the peace while the Hatfields were in Charleston.

  Now fifty-two, Devil Anse appeared remarkably youthful, his bushy beard still dark brown, not gray. A reporter described him as “a medium sized man, very stoop shouldered, with a quick eye that seems to look in all directions at once,” adding “no one would judge from his appearance that he is the blood thirsty villain that imaginative newspaper men have pictured him to be.” He wore a navy-blue suit with his pant legs stuffed into his rough boots, and Major Alderson, whom the Wheeling Intelligencer identified as “a good friend of Anse,” hired a hotel porter to give the boots a patent-leather sheen—a formidable task that took more than twenty minutes of intensive polishing.

  The dapper Devil Anse was well represented by attorneys George W. Atkinson—a future governor of West Virginia and the former U.S. marshal who had hired Dan Cunningham as a deputy marshal—of Wheeling and C. C. Watts of Charleston. Spectators packed the courtroom, some wanting just to catch a glimpse of the famous defendant and others hoping to figure out a way to seize him and collect the reward for his head.

  Judge Jackson, a stern hawk-nosed tyrant on the bench, treated Devil Anse like a visiting dignitary. The proceedings lasted most of a day, with the defense arguing that the charges were trumped up and that the whole thing was merely a conspiracy by Dave Stratton and various detectives to get Devil Anse out of his stronghold so they could capture him and take him to Kentucky to claim the bounty on his head. (The requisition from Kentucky was introduced at the trial to impugn Devil Anse, but it “had no effect.”) After listening to the evidence and the testimony, the jury acquitted him. Judge Jackson instructed Henry White to ensure that Devil Anse was amply protected on his way home. As the courtroom cleared, Jackson commented to general laughter, “When Hatfield gets back to his house, I certainly have no objection to any of you arresting him that may want to try.”22

  George W. Atkinson, U.S. marshal (1881–1885) and governor of West Virginia (1896–1900).

  The next day, November 21, Devil Anse granted a two-hour interview to a reporter from the Wheeling Intelligencer, which remains one of the chief sources for feud histories. Devil Anse claimed, among other things, that Marion, Tom, and Johnse McCoy, who had served in his company of irregular soldiers during the war, were “now trying to kill me.” He denied that he or his sons Johnse and Cap had anything to do with the slaying of the three McCoy brothers, saying, “As a matter of fact we knew nothing of the murders until several days after they had been committed.”23

  Devil Anse’s satisfaction at being treated with respect by some of the best men in the state was tempered, however. He had another predicament in the family, one that he was trying to gain some purchase on. “Mounts has been tried and sentenced to be hung,” he told the Intelligencer.

  The hanging had originally been set for December 3, 1889, but after Cotton Top lost his appeal, Governor Buckner set a new execution date of Tuesday, February 18, 1890. Still, there was not much time for Devil Anse to save his nephew.

  Chapter 21

  The Bitter End

  November 1889–February 1890

  That same month, November 1889, the Detroit Free Press picked up reports out of Milton, West Virginia, of “another bloody battle” between the Hatfields and the McCoys, although this particular battle began between the McCoys and a family named the Blumfields. In the account, the McCoys “crawled up through the dense underbrush and poured in a volley on their sleeping foes,” wounding a dozen men and killing two, including John Blumfield, one of the clan’s leaders. Somehow, as in a dream, the Blumfields became the Hatfields, who returned the gunfire and, “although taken by surprise, were so much better armed than the McCoys, having repeating rifles, that they soon put them to flight.”

  The Free Press reported that four McCoys were taken by the Hatfields; one was left to die, and the other three—Charles Lambkins, John Cain, and Peter McCoy—were herded off to the Hatfield camp, where a “court-martial” was held. “The prisoners were not allowed to speak in their defense, and after a short deliberation a vote on their life or death was taken by the entire Hatfield party.” The result, not surprisingly, “was unanimous and the three men will be tied to trees and shot to-day. Nothing can save them unless the McCoys can defeat the entire Hatfield party and effect a rescue.” For good measure, the story noted that “the courier who brought this news was shot at twice from ambush while riding through Lincoln County.”1

  The November 23 Wheeling Intelligencer, however, reported that news of the alleged Blumfield-McCoy vendetta in Lincoln County, “blood-curdling accounts of whole communities being arrayed against each other and factions thirsting for the blood of their enemies on account of certain grievances,” were false tales from “penny-a-liners who find for them a ready sale to the newspapers for the outside world.”

  There had in fact been a crime that set off the reports. Two men, Haley and McCoy—their first names lost to history—had waylaid a man named Al Brumfield and his wife and shot them. A mob seized Haley and McCoy and riddled them with bullets. That ended the matter. No vendetta existed. A businessman who had just returned from the region told the Intelligencer, “There is not a word of truth in the sensational reports recently imposed upon the newspapers, and through them on the reading public.”2

  THREE MONTHS AFTER DEVIL ANSE’S journey to Charleston, Cotton Top Mounts prepared to die on the scaffold. A large crowd showed up, but Perry Cline would not attend the execution, nor would he permit any of his family to be present at the spectacle. Randall McCoy, who now lived in a modest house on the Pikeville riverbank and ran a ferry, watched but derived little pleasure from it. The loss of his sons, the burning of his home, the near-fatal beating of his wife, and the death of his daughter had ruined him, and he was known to roam the streets muttering about his woes.

  Cotton Top rode to the execution site, at the base of a low hill—now on the campus of Pikeville College, founded in 1888 by Presbyterians—atop his own coffin. He was given a last opportunity to speak. He coolly announced that he would make no speech and that “he was ready to die, and he hoped that all of his friends would be good men and women, and meet him in heaven.” Standing on the gallows, in the last seconds of his life, Cotton Top, all alone, strove for justice in the only way he could. He hollered the anguished, accusatory plaint that would be long remembered by those involved in the feud: “The Hatfields made me do it!”

  Scene of Cotton Top Mounts’s hanging, February 20, 1890. (Big Sandy Heritage Center)

  At six minutes to one o’clock, the black hood was adjusted, and the trap was sprung. As Cotton Top writhed between heaven and earth, a gasp rang through the crowd. After hanging ten minutes, he was pronounced dead by the attending physician, and his body was cut down and subsequently viewed by hundreds of curious spectators. They were looking at the fresh corpse of the only man who would be legally sentenced to death and executed as a result of the feud.

  A photographer snapped a picture of the gallows, which has been widely circulated and republished, so much so that it has become one of the feud’s most enduring images. It appears to have been taken j
ust before the hanging. The figure crouching against a fence post to the left and rear of the scaffold is possibly Cotton Top. Eight men are on the scaffold. Five of them are on their knees. One—perhaps the Reverend J. W. Pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in Pikeville, who was also the jail physician—is looking to heaven and leading them in prayer. A guard in the left foreground holds his rifle extended horizontally in one hand and his hat in the other. His eyes are lowered to the ground.3

  Just as there had been little assistance at his trial and no rescue from his relatives, there would be minimal effort made for Cotton Top’s burial by those who received his body. He was laid to rest across the Levisa Fork in Dils Cemetery—among McCoys, no less—in graves marked and unmarked. No one bothered to place a stone by his head. “His dust is lost in the earth,” Truda McCoy would write.

  His reputation, however, endured for others to excoriate. The yellow journalist Charles Mutzenberg would call Cotton Top a “criminal by nature” but in the same breath say “he was easily influenced to obey the command of those who used him as a tool.” Indeed, Cotton Top was not a “criminal by nature,” if there is such a thing, but a simpleton led astray. Mutzenberg, however, spun a melodramatic epitaph for the dead man: “Ellison Mounts had ceased to be a dread to humanity,” he wrote. “Ignorant as the savage of interior Africa, he had no conception of the magnitude of his crimes…. Shedding human blood was a pastime with him.”4