The Feud: The Hatfields and McCoys: The True Story

by Dean King

  1. New York Times, “Three Desperadoes Trapped.” The story ludicrously dubs the three murderers part of the “Hatfield-McCoy gang,” as if the two opposing families were one.

  2. Donnelly, 16, and Beulah Cantley, “Uncle Dan, What a Man,” iv.

  3. Bill Wintz, “The Bruen Lands Feud.”

  4. New York Herald, “Murderers Turn Lynchers,” and Dan Cunningham, Memoirs of Daniel W. Cunningham: The Criminal History of Roane and Jackson Counties, West Virginia, 14.

  5. Cunningham, Memoirs, 10.

  6. The name of the town of Jeffreys was later changed to Kenna.

  7. Prichard, 71–72, and Randall Osborne and Jeffrey C. Weaver, The Virginia State Rangers and State Line, 201.

  8. Cunningham, “Horrible Butcheries,” 25, n. 1, and Memoirs, 14. See also Wintz.

  9. The dialogue here is taken from Samuel Hopkins Adams, “Dan Cunningham: A Huntsman of the Law,” McClure’s Magazine, 216–17. Writing in 1904, Adams had access to Cunningham and his diaries, which are unfortunately now lost. Wade Counts’s name is sometimes spelled “Waid” (Shirley Donnelly, Beckley Post Herald, “Testifying Was Dangerous Business,” and Cunningham, Memoirs).

  10. Cunningham, “Horrible Butcheries,” 25, n. 1.

  11. Ibid.; Cunningham, Memoirs, 49; George W. Atkinson and Alvaro F. Gibbens, Prominent Men of West Virginia, 469; and PoliticalGraveyard.com, “Index to Politicians: Thomas W. Harvey,” www.politicalgraveyard.com/bio/harvey.html. Some sources say that Cunningham was made a deputy U.S. marshal in 1884, appointed by Marshal George W. Atkinson. Atkinson, a successful Internal Revenue agent from 1879 to 1881 who arrested many moonshiners, was appointed a U.S. marshal in 1881 and served until 1885. He was elected to Congress in 1888 and served as governor of West Virginia from 1897 to 1901. Of Cunningham, Ludwell H. Johnson III (in Cunningham, “Horrible Butcheries,” 25) wrote, “He returned in 1887 as a Deputy U.S. Marshal dedicated, he tells us, to bringing his brother’s killers to justice.” This is apparently based on Adams, 217. Johnson (Cunningham, 25, n. 1) said that Cunningham was appointed marshal in 1884. Cunningham wrote, “About one year after Robert Duff’s throat was cut at the Lynn Camp School house… I began working for the Government as Deputy U.S. Marshal” (Cunningham, Memoirs, 48). This would be in 1888, but all other evidence points to the 1884 date.

  12. Adams, 220.

  Chapter 11: A Double Whipping

  1. Ely, 21, 269–78, 286–87, 326–27, 342–60.

  2. Marilynn Marchione, “Disease Underlies Hatfield-McCoy Feud,” Washington Post; Mary Holley and Ron McCoy (phone interviews with author); Atuk O. Nuzhet et al., “Pheochromocytoma in von Hippel–Lindau Disease,” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 117; and Carole Bartoo, “Genetic Clues to Famous Feud,” Vanderbilt Reporter. In 2002, scientists at Vanderbilt University isolated a gene that they believe encodes a tendency to violence in those who possess it. Furthermore, they suggested that Randall McCoy might have had the VHLD (von Hippel–Lindau disease) gene.

  3. Sanders, “Ollie McCoy,” and Deborah McCoy Autry (phone interview, Nov. 3, 2011). Lark’s family would later say that he had killed so many men that his conscience bothered him; he could not go to sleep unless a white cloth was put over his eyes. And when one daughter-in-law (who called him a “vile-tempered man”) tried to convert him to her brand of Christianity, she said, “he picked up a chair, and I thought he was going to hit me with it.” In the end, however, she managed to convert him. In more McCoy on McCoy violence, in 1921, the eighty-three-year-old retired county judge John J. McCoy, “the oldest survivor of the McCoy faction,” was killed at his home in Martin County, Kentucky, in a knife fight with his cousin Tom McCoy, who cut his throat from ear to ear. New York Times, “Kentucky Feudist Is Slain.”

  4. Sam McCoy, 67–68 ; Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Truda McCoy, 112; and Staton, 124.

  5. Crawford, “American Vendetta,” and Spears, “Mountain Feud.”

  6. Mutzenberg, 50–52 ; Swain, 189; and Sam McCoy, 63.

  7. Hatfield and Spence, 126; Truda McCoy, 120–21, 227, n. 13; Mutzenberg, 52; Donnelly, 18; and Brewster Rawls (interview, Feb. 2, 2012).

  8. Mutzenberg, 52–54 ; Truda McCoy, 227, n. 13; and Hatfield and Spence, 153, 228.

  9. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Donnelly, 17–18. Most histories do not name Wallace’s wife but identify her as a sister of Jeff and Nancy McCoy. In Truda McCoy (227, n. 13), the book’s editor, Leonard Roberts, wrote that Wallace “is alleged to have forged a marriage license,” but he and Victoria Daniels did legitimately marry on Aug. 30, 1886. A record of the marriage, performed by Alex Varney (who, though not ordained, was an accepted and prolific administrator of vows in the valley), is in Logan County, West Virginia, Marriages, Book 1,1872–1892 (edited by Donna Brown), albeit somewhat disguised: Wallace is listed as “Walls, Thos,” son of Henry and Betty Walls. Staton (149) spelled the name “Wallas” in a Pike County grand jury indictment. He is listed as twenty-five, she as twenty-one, though other records show her to be sixteen. Exactly who Wallace married has often been confused. Donnelly (18), oddly, referred to her as the “Staton girl” and got comically confused when identifying not Wallace but the recently murdered Tom Wolford as the man who lived with her.

  10. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Truda McCoy, 312; and Donnelly, 18.

  11. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Howard, “Descendants of Richard Daniels”; and Louisville Courier-Journal, “Hatfields Arrive.” Mutzenberg (52–54) said that “the wife and mother of one Daniels were accused of furnishing information to the McCoys” and that “Daniels’ [sic] wife was a sister of Jeff McCoy.” Thus, it would be Daniels’s own mother who was the supreme gossip and his wife who was not much better. In Truda McCoy (227, n. 13), editor Leonard Roberts wrote that Wallace whipped his wife “after he and the other masked men whipped Mary and her mother-in-law,” which would mean that there were three adult women in the house, a claim made nowhere else but combining information in various accounts. In reality, the women present were Mary McCoy Daniels and her daughter Victoria (born 1869). Donnelly and Spears both described a home invasion in which only Cap Hatfield and Tom Wallace were involved. Other accounts present them as the ringleaders of a mob, often said to be in disguise but still identified by the women. Some of these accounts maintain that Bill Daniels was away at the time of the attack.

  12. Louisville Courier-Journal, “Hatfields Arrive”; Staton, 196. Much is made of this cow-tail whip in Hatfield-McCoy lore. Spears wrote that Cap “carried in his hand the tail of a cow, which he cut from an unfortunate brute some time before, just to see her jump, and had then hung it up and dried it.” Donnelly (18) wrote: “One day the Hatfields killed a cow and the subject of the way Bill Daniels’s wife and girl were gossiping must have come up for an airing at the butchering. With a stroke of imagination that bordered on sadistic genius, Cap thought of a useful purpose to which he might put that cow’s tail.”

  13. Old Pond Hatfield-McCoy Newsletter, “Letter from Anderson Hatfield.” According to Donnelly (18), who called this “the outstanding case of corporal punishment suffered by any women [in the feud],” Cap “mortally beat Mrs. Bill Daniels with the cow’s tail.” Mutzenberg (52–54) wrote that “Mrs. Daniels subsequently died from her injuries; the old lady was rendered a cripple for life.” But Spears (“Mountain Feud”) reported that Mary “afterward partially recovered” and that Victory “is in good health now.” He noted, however, that Mary’s “lungs were affected, and she will probably die of consumption inside of a year.” According to Howard (“Descendants of Richard Daniels”), Mary Daniels went on to have four more children from 1889 to 1896.

  14. Logan Banner, “Devil Anse’s Grandson Reminisces.”

  15. Prichard, 59, and Atkinson, 720–21. The younger John B. Floyd came from a storied family. His grandfather and uncle were former Virginia governors, and his father, George, had served as the secretary of state for the territory of Wisconsin before the war and then sold his Virginia estat
e, in Burkes Garden, to buy ten square miles of land in Logan County. A coal, salt, timber, and iron magnate, George had served as a colonel in the Confederacy. Using his mines as hideouts, his men were able to make raids and then vanish underground again. George Floyd was also a mentor to Elias Hatfield’s son Henry, the future fourteenth governor of West Virginia.

  16. G. Elliott Hatfield, 69, 72–73, and Swain, 95–96, 113. In 1852, Mayor Thomas Dunn English engineered the change of the town’s name from Lawnsville to Aracoma, but it was the Logan County seat and home of the county courthouse, so most people continued to refer to it as Logan Courthouse. The town incorporated in 1884 and changed its name to Logan in 1907.

  17. John L. Spivak Papers.

  18. Mutzenberg, 52–54 ; Swain, 189; and Spears, “Mountain Feud.” Naturally, the McCoys had a different version of events. According to them, after the attack on the Daniels women, Devil Anse saw Jeff McCoy, who had not taken part in the feud, on a road and greeted him cordially. He was apologetic about the beating, which had been well publicized, and lamented the fact that Cap was causing trouble. Understanding that amends needed to be made, he offered up Wallace. Jeff agreed to come get Wallace to take him to the Pikeville jail. But, according to this account, Devil Anse was double-crossing Jeff. The meeting, which took place at Johnse’s house on Grapevine Creek, was a trap. Jeff was seized, handed over to Wallace, and taken down the creek to Cap’s place on the Tug. “It is said that Cap nearly laughed himself sick when he saw Jeff driven into his yard and learned how neatly the old man had worked on the unsophisticated mind of McCoy,” wrote Spears. Cap got his rifle and told Wallace to drive Jeff down the road until he was opposite the Daniels cabin, where they could shoot him in front of his sister.

  19. Jones, 77; Donnelly, 27; and Hatfield and Spence, 221, 225.

  20. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Jones, 78; and Mutzenberg, 54–55. Hurley, who either escaped in the hubbub or was released after the killing, was of little interest to Cap and Wallace.

  21. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Mutzenberg, 52–56 ; and Swain, 189–90. While most accounts said that Cap killed Jeff McCoy, Cap denied it, and Donnelly (27) noted that “whether it was Tom Wallace’s gun or Cap Hatfield’s—no one knows.” Several houses still exist near the junction of Thacker Creek and the Tug Fork, and I can attest to the continuing ferocity of the neighborhood. In the spring of 2010, the day before the annual Hatfield-McCoy reunion, two forest rangers, Craig Kaderavek and Terry Elkins, helped me and my daughter Hazel, who was assisting me in my research, find this spot. We parked Terry’s SUV off a dirt road beside train tracks and bushwhacked down an overgrown path to the river’s edge and out onto the silty delta of the creek mouth. Soon two riders on an ATV were peering at us from the riverbank, far enough away to be out of hailing distance but close enough for them to get a good look at us. They drove to a collection of houses upriver. Pretty soon a hidden marksman began firing a pistol into the water dangerously close to us. The salvo—at least half a dozen shots—was more than enough to make a point.

  22. Old Pond Hatfield-McCoy Newsletter, “Letter from Devil Anse to P. A. Cline,” and Hatfield and Spence, 127.

  Chapter 12: The Enforcers

  1. Index to Order Books, County Court, Pike County, Kentucky; G. Elliott Hatfield, 79; Louisville Courier-Journal, “Back to Pikeville”; L. D. Hatfield, 35; and Spears, “Mountain Feud.” Many accounts call Cline the Pike County prosecuting attorney, but this is incorrect.

  2. Waller, 41–46, and “Last Will and Testament of Jacob Cline,” Cline Family website, www.clinefamilyassociation.com/will/of/jacob/rich/jake/cline.

  3. John Ed Pearce, Days of Darkness: The Feuds of Eastern Kentucky, 22. Considered a humane man, Governor Blackburn (who served from 1879 to 1883) nonetheless stood accused of one of the more nefarious plots of the Civil War, an attempt to infect President Lincoln and start a yellow fever pandemic in the North using the clothes of yellow fever victims. Though the plot was never proven, much evidence confirmed its existence. In any case, it would have failed because yellow fever can be spread only by mosquitoes. National Park Service, “Fort Donelson: The Battle,” www.nps.gov/fodo/planyourvisit/thebattleforfortdonelson.htm.

  4. Mutzenberg, 56–60, and Swain, 190. Knott served as Kentucky’s twenty-ninth governor, from Sept. 1883 to Aug. 1887.

  5. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Swain, 190; Jones, 75–78 ; Hatfield and Spence, 128; Pearce, 66; G. Elliott Hatfield, 74–75 ; and Truda McCoy, 227, n. 13. Some say it was Jake and Lark who caught Tom Wallace, but both Mutzenberg (52–56) and Spears said it was Jake and Bud, not Lark. Sink resigned as deputy sheriff soon after but passed the bar the next year.

  6. Donnelly, 27, and Jones, 157. Some say Lark McCoy killed Wallace. Others say Wallace lived to a ripe old age and fathered his last child in 1921.

  7. Thomas, 59.

  8. New York Times, “Vigilantes Take a Hand Disposing of a Band of Murderous Robbers,” and Adams, 217, 220. Adams said that Cunningham returned as a deputy U.S. marshal; however, in Memoirs, Cunningham indicated that this occurred later. New York Times, “A Gang of Murderers.”

  9. Atkinson, 915–18. Alf Burnett was born July 9, 1850.

  10. Adams, 217, and Charleston Daily Mail, “Death Ends Eventful Career of ‘Uncle Dan’ Cunningham.”

  11. Robert was the son of Cunningham’s sister Keziah, who was twelve years Dan’s senior and had married George H. Duff in 1856. Their sister Caroline also married a Duff, George’s brother Isaac, in 1861.

  12. Cunningham, Memoirs, 38.

  13. Arndt Stickles, Simon Bolivar Buckner: Borderland Knight, 165–70, 186–90, 346, 353–75.

  14. Jones, 84.

  15. Ibid., 84–85 ; Mutzenberg, 79–80 ; Pearce, 66; and Spears, “Mountain Feud.” Spears wrote that “Governor Buckner offered five hundred dollars each, for Bad Anse, Cap, and Johnse Hatfield, Tom Mitchell (under the name of Chambers), and Tom Wallace.” Jones (85) said only that a five-hundred-dollar reward was offered for Devil Anse. According to Mutzenberg, Buckner wrote in a Jan. 30, 1888, letter to Wilson that he “offered suitable rewards for four of the number, represented as being the leaders of the party and most responsible for their conduct.”

  16. New York Times, “Vigilantes Take a Hand.”

  17. Ibid.; James P. Mylott, A Measure of Prosperity: A History of Roane County, 52–55. Mylott said it was a “forty-four caliber pistol,” but the fact that it was a Winchester plays a continuing part in Cunningham’s version of events.

  18. Cunningham, Memoirs, 35–37. According to the New York Times (“Vigilantes Take a Hand”), Coon was from Tyler, Texas, and called himself Jesse James.

  19. Adams, 218–19, and Cunningham, Memoirs, 48.

  Chapter 13: Diplomacy Failed

  1. Hatfield and Spence, 294, 297.

  2. Creelman, “Bloody Border War.”

  3. Tom Atkins, “Franklin Phillips—No Outlaw,” Old Pond Hatfield-McCoy Newsletter, 43–47.

  4. Ely, 45–55 ; Prichard, 60, 69; and Baker and Hall, “Organization and History.” Dils adamantly denied any wrongdoing and, it is said, was in Washington, DC, pursuing an audience with Lincoln in order to plead his case when the president was assassinated.

  5. Pearce, 66; Mutzenberg, 56–60 ; Hill; Spears, “A Mountain Feud”; Atkins, “Franklin Phillips,” 48; and Swain, 190. One account claimed that Phillips’s first marriage was annulled because he and his wife were first cousins, but this seems unlikely. After the Civil War, first-cousin marriage became increasingly frowned upon, based on the (still controversial) theory that it affects the health of offspring. However, Kentucky was not among the thirteen states and territories that had passed prohibitions against first-cousin marriage by the 1880s, and it would not do so until 1943.

  6. Mutzenberg, 74, 79, from Jan. 30, 1888, letter from Buckner to Wilson; Crawford, American Vendetta, 26–27 ; Jones, 84–86 ; and Pearce, 66.

  7. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Mutzenberg, 56–60 ; and Swain, 191.

 
8. From Transcripts of Records, U.S. Supreme Court, 1887, as recorded in Jones, 86–87. Spellings per the original source.

  9. Jones, 88–89.

  10. Mutzenberg, 80. Many variant accounts of the sequence of arrests exist. Reporting in 1888, Spears (“Mountain Feud”) said that Tom Chambers’s house was raided on Dec. 9 and that Selkirk McCoy and Mose Christian were taken on Dec. 20. I have used this account, despite the fact that Jones (88) said that Selkirk McCoy was put in prison on Dec. 12, and cited the courthouse records; they do not, however, mention Mose Christian, who was captured with Selkirk. To give yet another report, Governor Buckner said in a Jan. 30 letter to Governor Wilson—based on adjutant general Sam Hill’s investigation, also in 1888—that in “the latter part of Dec. (1887), Frank Phillips… having sent the required fee, and being unable to hear anything from your Excellency, went into West Virginia in company with two others, and… succeeded in capturing Tom Chambers, Selkirk McCoy and Mose Christian.”

  11. Jones (88), though he said the prisoner was Selkirk McCoy, not Tom Chambers. Sanders, “ ‘Squirrel Huntin’ Sam’ McCoy” Phillips letter from Jones (89), who cited the original in the West Virginia State Archives, in Charleston, but as of Oct. 2011, archivists could not locate the letter. Spelling per the original. Also, Pearce, 66–67.

  12. Spears, “Mountain Feud,” and Pearce, 66.

  13. Wheeling Intelligencer, “New Developments in the Hatfield-M’Coy Feud.”

  14. Based on Hill, “Adjutant General”; Mutzenberg, 60–61 ; and Spears, “Mountain Feud.”

  15. Spears, “Mountain Feud”; Jones, 90–91 ; Pearce, 66–67 ; and Logan County Courthouse Law Order Book B, 471.

  16. Jones, 91–92.

  17. John R. Spears, “Murderous Mountaineers,” New York Sun.

  18. Coleman A. Hatfield, as quoted in Hatfield and Spence, 125, 166–68. Elsewhere Elias comes across as reluctant to be involved in the feud, as when Anse has to use threats to get Elias to join him to take back Johnse from the McCoys after his capture. However, Coleman A. Hatfield argued that it was Elias who now “rekindled the smoldering feud fires.”