Colin Evans Great Feuds in History, Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever (2001)

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

denly, defying Vance s orders not to shoot, Johnse, erratic as
ever, cut loose with a rifle. The retaliatory gunfire was immedi-
ate and heavy.
Dodging bullets all the way, Vance and another man, Tom
Chambers, edged their way close enough so they could torch the
cabin. As the flames took hold, Calvin, Ran l s son, shouted for
his three sisters, Josephine, Alifair, and Adelaide, to help. First,
they hurled buckets of water onto the blaze; then, when the
water ran out, they resorted to buttermilk.
The gunfight continued to rage. Suddenly, the kitchen door
was thrown open. There, framed in the doorway, flames licking
at her ankles, stood fifteen-year-old Alifair. Confident that the
Hatfields would not harm a woman, she attempted to douse the
blaze from outside the burning house. Just then, on orders from
Cap and Johnse, one of the Hatfield s cousins, a simple-minded
oaf named Ellison Mounts, shot her in the stomach. According
to legend, as Alifair lay screaming on the ground, her mother,
Sarah, tried to reach her, crying out, For the love of the Lord,
let me go to her! 7 Johnse, drunk with revenge, was having none
of it. He ran forward and pistol-whipped the grieving mother
into unconsciousness.
Through the smoke and hellish confusion, Calvin yelled to Ran l
that he would provide covering fire so the old man could escape.
04 evans ch 4 1/30/01 12:51 PM Page 78
78 GREAT FEUDS IN HISTORY
Ran l, grabbing extra cartridges, defied his sixty-two years and
sprinted like a jackrabbit for the labyrinthine woods, where the
Hatfields dared not follow. Behind him the crackle of gunfire raged.
Calvin fought bravely, but the odds were overwhelming and
soon a Hatfield bullet snuffed out his life.
In their bloodlust the Hatfields burned the house to the
ground. The raid had been a disaster for both sides, but espe-
cially for the attackers. As they rode off in the darkness, they
could hear the wails of the McCoy women, all of whom were wit-
nesses to the carnage. When Ran l finally emerged from the
pigsty where he had been hiding, he saw for the first time young
Alifair, cold and dead, her hair frozen to the ground.
Just days later the bodies of Alifair and Calvin were laid next
to their three brothers (Tol, Pharm, and Bud), who had been
buried in the Blackberry Creek cemetery less than six years ear-
lier. Ran l McCoy was fast running out of family.
With his wife, Sarah, still clinging to life, Ran l packed up and
moved the McCoys to Pikeville. The awful events of that night
unhinged his mind. Forever after, when drunk and sometimes
even when sober, he would take to the streets of Pikeville, curs-
ing the Hatfields at the top of his lungs, howling for vengeance.
Over in West Virginia, aware that this latest outburst had been
one bloodbath too many, several Hatfields hastily laid the ground-
work for any future defense by swearing affidavits to the effect
that they were nowhere near Blackberry Fork on the fateful night.
Even more significantly, for the first time news of the Hatfields
and McCoys reached the big-city papers, where reports varied
widely in their accuracy and impartiality. In the Pittsburgh
Times, reporter Charles S. Howell thundered, There is a gang
in West Virginia banded together for the purpose of murder and
rapine, dominated by a cold-blooded autocrat who had ordered
a succession of cowardly murders by day and assassinations and
house-burnings by night. 8
In West Virginia, unsurprisingly, the Wheeling Intelligencer
put an entirely different spin on events, declaring, No more
hospitable, honest, or peacefully disposed people live than the
Hatfields. 9
Such partisan reporting helped stoke interstate animosity and
04 evans ch 4 1/30/01 12:51 PM Page 79
Hatfields versus McCoys 79
led to local militias on either side of the border being mobilized.
While muckraking journalists made hay, the governors struggled
to work out a compromise.
On January 9, Buckner wrote Wilson, asking if there was any
good reason why those indicted for the 1882 killing should not
be rendered to Kentucky. Before any reply was forthcoming,
Bad Frank Phillips organized a large posse that forayed deep
into Logan County and fought a pitched battle on Grapevine
Creek with thirteen Hatfield supporters. In the shoot-out
Phillips s band gained the upper hand, and over several raids
they rounded up nine Hatfield supporters and marched them
back to Kentucky to stand trial. When Phillips finally nabbed the
crafty Vance, he took no chances and shot him in the head.
While the bullets continued to fly, the two governors main-
tained their correspondence, Wilson reminding Buckner that
more than five years had elapsed from the 1882 killings before
any extradition request had been made. He also wanted Cline
and his troublemaking henchman, Phillips, removed from any
impending negotiations. As stances hardened, Wilson dis-
patched an emissary to Buckner with a demand that he free the
nine imprisoned West Virginians. Buckner replied that this was
a matter for the courts, not the governor. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Wątki