The Hatfields and the McCoys (15 page)

Reporters, nevertheless, continued their unflattering descriptions of mountain life. A staff writer for the
New York Sun,
sent to Logan County ostensibly to report on the hunting situation, declared, “The presence of detectives has made the criminals exceedingly cautious, and that means that they are ready to shoot an armed stranger on sight, not to mention the temptation they would feel to become possessed of the sort of weapon a Northern sportsman would be likely to carry.” The Hatfields, who visited Logan one day in mid-August to collect royalties for mineral rights they had sold to eastern capitalists, asserted their intention of remaining peacefully at home and, as Judge Weddington observed, disturbing no one unless they were molested.
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In August 1888 T. C. Crawford, a much-traveled reporter for the
New York World,
visited Logan County in the company of John B. Floyd and Clarence Moore of the United States District Court at Charleston, whom he persuaded to accompany him. At Logan they met Elias, a brother of Devil Anse. With his broad forehead, deep-set, clear blue eyes, large Roman nose, and determined chin, Elias resembled his more famous brother. Although he appeared reticent and nervous, he revealed a decisiveness of character. He gave the appearance of a man of restraint but with peculiar ideas regarding killjoy. “All I want,” he declared, “is to be let alone. But if people keep on botherin' and wrongin' those who are dear to me—why, let them look out.”

Farther on, Crawford and his companions saw in the doorway of a cabin a man described by the newspaperman as “unprepossessing, unhung a villain as I have ever had the misfortune to see. He had a small, bullet head, frosty complexion, washed-out eyes, little pug nose and great sandy mustache lining the cruel, tight-lipped mouth. He balanced a Winchester across his lap.” Crawford learned later that the man was French Ellis, one of the participants in the attack upon the McCoys the previous January.
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A few hundred” yards farther on the travelers met Devil Anse himself. The feud leader impressed Crawford with his powerful frame, broad shoulders, and deep chest. Although about fifty years old, he had no gray in his hair, beard, or bushy eyebrows. His nose was hooked “like a Turkish scimitar.” Devil Anse wore a brown coat, faded black hat, blue shirt, and blue jeans, the latter tucked into his high boots. When his coat swung open, Crawford noticed that he carried a large Colt revolver strapped to his hip in addition to the rifle which he had with him.

Devil Anse proved so cordial and hospitable that Crawford found no difficulty in asking rather personal questions relating to the feud. To the observation that Devil Anse was said never to have killed anyone “for the pleasure of it,” the patriarch answered, “I ain't that kind o' man.” He vowed, however, to protect his family against all danger. Asked what he would do if a detective tried to capture him, Devil Anse answered without hesitation, “Wall, now, I ain't aimin't' be bothered no mo'. I been hidin' out in th' brush an' kept ‘way from my bebbies.” On the other hand, he stated flatly, “I want this trouble settled. It's gone on long ‘nuff. I aim t' stay at my home, whar I am, fur the present. If th' Guv'ner sends a paper hyar fur me in th' right form, why, I ain't a-gonna kill th' man whut brings it.”

Devil Anse told Crawford that he had nine men on guard constantly and that he did not intend to surrender. He declared that he might hide out in the woods, “an' I reckon nobody kin ketch me in these hyar mountins. I jist ain't a-gonna be taken.” Devil Anse spoke indulgently of the McCoys and expressed regret that the feud had occurred. The reporter left the clan leader convinced that many of his people might yet die but that it would take half a regiment of soldiers to capture them.
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In early autumn the Hatfields suffered a further depletion of their ranks. On October 14 the
Cincinnati Enquirer
reported that for more than three weeks Charles Gillespie, one of the men wanted for the McCoy family murders of 1888, had been confined to the jail in Ironton, Ohio. “A handsome fellow, presumably nineteen years old, with dark hair and eyes, very gentlemanly in appearance, and … the last man one would point out as a desperate man,” Gillespie had been traced for months by detectives, anxious to take him dead or alive. About September 15 Detective P. A. Campbell of Wellston, Ohio, captured him in Virginia. When Campbell got the drop on Gillespie, thrust his revolver a few inches from the young man's head, and ordered him to throw up his hands, Gillespie answered coolly, “You've got me dead to rights; shoot if you want to, but recollect a Hatfield never throws up hi' hands. Treat me like a man, though, and I'll go quietly with you.”

On the way from Virginia to Wellston, Ohio, Campbell and his prisoner stopped for several days at the home of Detective Alf Burnett in Charleston. Gillespie adamantly refused to divulge any information to Burnett, but he found Mrs. Burnett a kindly woman, and “in a burst of confidence, he told her his story.” When they arrived in Wellston, Gillespie again gave an account of his part in the feud to Campbell's wife, who wrote it out and had Gillespie swear to it in the presence of the mayor of the town. Shortly afterward, Campbell took Gillespie to the jail in Ironton. There Gillespie remained until Lee Ferguson, the commonwealth attorney for Pike County, and Burnett arrived with requisition papers from the governor of Kentucky and removed him first to the Catlettsburg jail and then to Pikeville.

At Catlettsburg, Gillespie received a visit from Charles S. Powell, the indefatigable reporter for the
Pittsburgh Times.
Once again Gillespie related his story, which had wide circulation not only in the
Times
but in other newspapers as well. He told Howell that he had been lured into accompanying the Hatfields in the New Year's venture into Kentucky by Cap, who promised some fun. He identified Cap, Johnse, Elliott, and Bob Hatfield, Jim Vance, French, or Doc, Ellis, Ellison Mounts, Tom Chambers, and himself as the participants in the attack upon the McCoy family. The object of the attack, Gillespie quoted Jim Vance as saying, was to kill Randolph McCoy and his son Calvin and thereby remove “every material witness against the men who had taken part in the murder of the three McCoy boys.” By eliminating the witnesses, the Hatfields hoped to prevent their own conviction even if they were brought to trial. Gillespie reiterated a remark made by Vance that the Hatfields and their friends wanted to sleep without the necessity of keeping their rifles at hand and constantly fearing arrest. Gillespie stated that the attackers decided that if the McCoy family would not come out when called, they would shoot through the windows and doors until all inside were dead. According to Gillespie, he and one of the Hatfields had no part in the killings but simply stood guard some distance away until the house was burning.
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Before the end of October Detectives Dan Cunningham and Treve Gibson captured Ellison Mounts. They tracked Mounts assiduously for days and finally ambushed him on a road near the head of Mate Creek. Unlike Gillespie, Mounts proved an unwilling captive, and several shots were fired before the detectives got him in handcuffs. During the exchange Mounts shot Gibson in the leg.

After they captured Mounts, Cunningham and Gibson concentrated their attention upon Alex Messer, one of the most dangerous men in the Tug Valley. Messer had once served as deputy sheriff of Perry County and allegedly had twenty-seven notches in his gun. With the same diligence they had shown in apprehending Mounts, the detectives traced Messer to a store in Lincoln County, West Virginia. They engaged him in friendly conversation, and Messer invited them to his lodgings. There Cunningham and Gibson identified themselves, and the helpless Messer went along peacefully.
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The Hatfields knew that they could not tolerate further decimation of their ranks by the detectives. Unfortunately for their continued success, the detectives talked much too freely. Some of them, including Dan Cunningham and Dick Evans, boasted around Logan that they had plans to shoot Devil Anse, Cap, and French Ellis after which they anticipated no trouble in capturing the remaining Hatfields. On January 12 the Hatfields swore out peace warrants for the garrulous detectives. Soon afterward, the Hatfields caught them and marched them to the Logan jail. To add insult to injury, the Hatfields climbed on the backs of the detectives each time they had to ford a stream and forced the hawkshaws to carry them across.
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The resentment felt toward the detectives appeared in a letter to the
Logan County Banner,
allegedly written by a neighbor but more likely by one of the Hatfields. An arsonist, believed to have been Dan Cunningham, set fire to Devil Anse's barn and crib, causing the loss of a horse valued at $150 and 150 bushels of corn. Regarding the incident, the writer declared, “I think it is an outrage and disgrace to the public to let such go on. We want peace in our land and country, and not destruction of property by fire and trying to kill and destroy what the people have worked and made by the sweat of their brow. Anderson Hatfield is as peaceable a man as we have in Logan County, if he is let alone.… Now we ask the detectives to not interfere with our business and we will not interfere with them.”
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Hostility toward the detectives long continued. Several years later William G. Baldwin, the head of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, went to Island Creek to track down one of the Hatfields engaged in making moonshine. Posing as a simple traveler, he thought that he scored something of a coup by spending the night with Devil Anse, who extended his usual hospitality. About four o'clock the next morning, however, Devil Anse called the astonished Baldwin by name and told him that breakfast was ready. Then, telling the detective that he had some mean boys who might harm him, he escorted Baldwin to the top of a distant ridge, and the outwitted detective was forced to leave empty-handed. The Hatfields, despite their enmity, might have some respect for the McCoys; for the detectives they had none.
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12

THE HATFIELDS STAND TRIAL

I
N LATE AUGUST 1889 the trial of the Hatfields and their associates for the McCoy murders opened in Pikeville. Before it commenced, Lee Ferguson, the commonwealth attorney for Pike County, extracted a confession from Ellison Mounts, whom detectives had captured in October 1888 and whom Ferguson regarded as the weakest member of the Hatfield clan. Mounts admitted that he had participated in the murder of the three McCoys on the night of August 9, 1882. He provided an account of their detention at the schoolhouse on Mate Creek, identified Charles Carpenter as the man who tied the brothers to the pawpaw bushes, quoted Devil Anse as advising them to make their peace with God, and named Devil Anse, Johnse, Cap, and Bill Tom Hatfield, Carpenter, Alex Messer, and Tom Chambers as those who actually shot the McCoys. Mounts confirmed the story that Wall Hatfield swore the participants in the murder to secrecy. He also described the shooting of Jeff McCoy, as told to him by Cap Hatfield.
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Besides the confession of Mounts, the prosecution produced nineteen witnesses. The presence of eight witnesses who bore the name of Hatfield serves as a forceful reminder that the division
between
the Hatfield and McCoy clans was not nearly as sharp as many writers have portrayed. Randolph McCoy, who took the witness stand first, testified that he was with his sons when Wall Hatfield and his supporters overtook the Pike County officers en route to Pikeville and persuaded them to turn their prisoners over to the Hatfields. Randolph proved a disappointing witness in that his memory of many incidents appeared hazy and unreliable.

Sarah McCoy, on the other hand, had a vivid recollection of the night of August 9, 1882. She gave details of her visit to the schoolhouse on Mate Creek, where she saw Cap, Johnse, and Bill Tom Hatfield, Carpenter, Messer, Dan Whitt, and others, all of them armed. She remembered Walls stating that if Ellison Hatfield died, they would shoot the McCoy brothers as full of holes as a sifter bottom. She also recounted her conversation with Wall at the house of Perry Cline in Pikeville, but she did not recall telling him that her son Tolbert had mentioned kind treatment by Wall during the time that the McCoys were held or that he had asked his friends to be kind to “Uncle Wall.”

James McCoy, the forty-year-old son of Randolph and Sarah, added details to those provided by his parents. Jim remained at the schoolhouse on Mate Creek until news came that Ellison Hatfield had died. He then started back to his brothers and on the way met Wall and Elias Hatfield, Plyant Mahon, and Elijah Mounts, whom he saw again at the mouth of Sulphur Creek “at thick dusk” heading toward Mate Creek. About twenty minutes later, from Asa McCoys house near the mouth of Sulphur Creek, he heard about fifty shots, which he believed came from the Kentucky side of the Tug Fork. Jim and several others later went to the scene of the shooting and found his three brothers dead. He declared, under cross-examination, that he had talked with Wall Hatfield in the Pike County jail in 1888, but he had no recollection of telling John Scott that Wall had nothing to do with the murder because he did not have time to get to the scene after Jim had seen him at the mouth of Sulphur Creek.

The testimony of most of the other witnesses corroborated that of Randolph, Sarah, and James McCoy in essential outlines. Joe Davis asserted that it was he who informed Wall Hatfield that young Randolph McCoy, Jr., had cut Ellison Hatfield and that Wall had said that was all he wanted to know. Dan and Jeff Whitt turned states evidence in return for a promise by Commonwealth Attorney S. G. Kinner that he would dismiss indictments against them. Dan Whitt stated that at the time of the trial he was staying with “Uncle Randall McCoy,” but that he had talked “but little with him or Aunt Sallie about this caserBoth Whitts testified that Wall had sworn those present at the killing of the McCoys to secrecy regarding the murders on penalty of being hanged. Several witnesses, including Sam McCoy and Floyd Hatfield, testified that they had heard Wall declare that if Ellison died the McCoys would be killed but that otherwise they would be turned over to the proper authorities. Several discrepancies appeared in the testimony of the witnesses, one of the most glaring being in that of the Whitt brothers, who disagreed on whether Plyant Mahon or his brother Sam was among four men who left the scene of the shooting before the murder of the McCoys took place.