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The Hatfields and McCoys

The Original Family Feud

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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

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Family Feud

Long before the television game show, real families were involved in bloody family feuds.
Aside from the Shepherdsons and Grangerfords, other fictional feuding families include the Capulets and the Montagues.

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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 Shepherdson-Grangerford feud? Possibly… YOU be the judge.

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Why did it happen?

The Civil War
The stolen pig
Romeo and Juliet of the Appalachians

Devil Anse Hatfield

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Map of the Feud

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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.