Transcript The Hatfields and McCoys

The Hatfields and McCoys
The Original Family Feud
Grangerfords and Shepherdsons
“All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! go
three or four guns.... The boys jumped for
the river - both of them hurt - and as they
swum down the current the men run along
the bank shooting at them and signing out,
‘Kill them, kill them!’ It made me sick.... I
wished I hadn’t come ashore that night to
see such things.”
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Chapter XIX
Family Feud
• Long before the television game show,
real families were involved in bloody family
feuds.
• Aside from the Shephersons and
Grangerfords, other fictional feuding
families include the Capulets and the
Montagues.
The Hatfields and the McCoys
• From 1878 to 1896, two Appalachian
families, the Hatfields and the McCoys,
were embroiled in the most famous
historical family feud.
• More than a dozen lives were lost.
• Was this feud the inspiration for the
Shepherson-Grangerford feud?
Possibly… YOU be the judge.
Why did it happen?
• The Civil War
• The stolen pig
• Romeo and Juliet of
the Appalachians
Devil Anse Hatfield
The Civil War
• In the Civil War, the two
families were on opposite
sides of the war. The
Hatfields fought for the
Confederacy, while the
McCoys fought for the
Union.
• During the war, Anderson
“Devil Anse” Hatfield
supposedly killed Harmon
McCoy in battle.
• Devil Anse came home a
Confederate captain.
Harmon McCoy
Brother of Ran’l McCoy
The Stolen Pig
• In 1878, there was a
dispute over ownership of
a razor-backed hog in a
Hatfield pigsty.
• The judge in the court
dispute, a Hatfield, sided
with his kin.
• After the court decision, a
group of McCoys
ambushed Hatfields while
hunting.
Floyd Hatfield – Accused Pig Thief
Romeo and Juliet of the Appalachians
• In 1880, Johnse
Hatfield, son of Devil
Anse, ran off with
Roseanna McCoy at
an Election Day picnic
• This outraged
Randolph “Ran’l”
McCoy, Roseanna’s
father.
• The feud escalated.
1881
• In 1881 Roseanna and Johnse split up
after she lived, unwed, with Johnse and
the Hatfields for several months. She was
pregnant. She caught measles while
pregnant and the baby died.
• Roseanna rode all the way back to Devil
Anse’s home to warn Johnse of an
ambush set up by her brothers.
• Johnse married Roseanna’s cousin Nancy
later that year.
1882
• On August 9, Bud,
Tolbert, and Pharmer
McCoy killed Ellison
Hatfield.
• The three McCoys
were tied to bushes
and executed by the
Hatfields.
• Jeff McCoy was later
killed on the banks of
the Tug Fork River.
1888
• Alifair and Calvin McCoy are brutally
murdered in a Hatfield raid on the McCoy
cabin.
• The McCoy cabin is burned to the ground.
• Roseanna McCoy died later that year.
Map of the Feud
Lessons Learned
• When the dust
settled, the two
families eventually put
the feud behind them.
• The families
intermarried.
• Today, they hold an
annual reunion, and
the only feuding they
do is on the baseball
field.
Learn More
• Read The Coffin Quilt by Ann Rinaldi
• Visit http://www.libbygenealogy.com/hatfield-mccoy.htm
• Visit
http://www.blueridgecountry.com/hatmac/h
atmac.html
• Visit
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~dmcco
01/McCoy/diversion.html