Blood Feud The Hatfields and the McCoys: The Epic Story of Murder and Vengeance

Lisa Alther

eBook - 2013

America's most notorious family feud began in 1865 with the murder of a Union McCoy soldier by a Confederate Hatfield relative of "Devil Anse" Hatfield. More than a decade later, Ranel McCoy accused a Hatfield cousin of stealing one of his hogs, triggering years of violence and retribution, including a Romeo-and-Juliet interlude that eventually led to the death of one of McCoy's daughters. In a drunken brawl, three of McCoy's sons killed Devil Anse Hatfield's younger brother. Exacting vigilante vengeance, a group of Hatfields tied them up and shot them dead. McCoy posses hijacked part of the Hatfield firing squad across state lines to stand trial, while those still free burned down Ranel McCoy's cabin and ...shot two of his children in a botched attempt to suppress the posses. Legal wrangling ensued until the US Supreme Court ruled that Kentucky could try the captured West Virginian Hatfields. Seven went to prison, and one, mentally disabled, yelled, "The Hatfields made me do it!" as... more