A Geek History of Time - Episode 243 - On-Screen Hatfield & McCoy Depictions Part IV

Episode Date: December 23, 2023

Like they they advertise one match when crashing a car into one of the wrestlers. Not a total victory of Russia, which now we're seeing. He jumps off. He can't take bag of flaccid dicks. Sorry, contidence. Which when you open them up, you find out that they're all cockroaches inside. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if anybody else is ever going to laugh this hard at anything we say.

We can actually both look out my window right now and see some very pretty yellow flowers that I'm going to be eradicating. 1.0-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5- This is a geek history of time. Where we connect nerve-racking to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock, a world history and English teacher here in Northern California. And as we record this, my wife is binging the latest season of a romantic drama series in the other room. And she was just giving me the rundown of what I had missed earlier in the evening. earlier in the evening. And it reminded me of a policy I have that's influenced by television. And I want to find out if you have anything similar in your own life. Anytime I wind up having to go for medical treatment, I pay very close attention to the medical staff. Like anytime I have to go to the ER, I pay really close attention to the medical staff. And I have determined from watching a number

of medical series, but especially Gray's Anatomy. If too many of my doctors are too pretty, I'm going to insist that I get sent to another hospital. Because somebody almost always dies. And if the staff around me are too pretty, I'm the ordinary one. And my life is in danger. It doesn't matter what injury is. Could be that, you know, I've been injured in the garden. Could be a serious burn. I don't know. Food poisoning. What it doesn't matter. I don't care. If I'm in the ER and the doctors are too pretty, I want you to transfer me to another facility. I will pay out of network rates on my HMO. I don't care.

But that's a rule I have from watching weight-chiming seasons of Grey's Anatomy. Do you have any other, like, am I, am I, is this just another thing that makes me a complete weirdo or do you have any other, any other kind of kind of rules like that in your own life? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a US history teacher up here in Northern California. And I will tell you this, those two questions do not need to be mutually exclusive. I do have one and you're a weirdo. Yeah.

I mean, so my brother, he served in the military over in Iraq and and spent a lot of time over there 22 months of our call correctly. And I told him to never, ever tell anybody about his girl back home, about the farm that he just purchased or about any kind of marital plants he might have. Now, he, as far as I know, was never dating a girl back home, had never bought a farm back home or anything like that. But I still maintain that you, if you are serving in the military, you never, ever, ever

let people know about your girl back home or about your, uh, the farm that you are one down payment away from finishing. Uh, and then you're going to marry her. No, none of that. Uh, so, so there is that suspicion. I also, uh, back in the days before cell phones and things like that, I didn't drive until I was much older in life. And so friends would come and pick me up. And very often, you know, as happens, you get delayed or what have you. And I knew that the best way to find out if somebody was going to be delayed

was to get my stuff ready and be on my way out the door and then I'd hear the phone ring. And so there were a few times where I was like, ooh, I haven't heard from them yet. I bet you they're going to call soon. I'd better hurry that up and get out the door so that they can call. And it worked enough that like, you know, by my doing that ritual, I did not induce them to call in some sort of weird psychic way, but it certainly felt that way. Yeah.

No, I believe that. I would say, you know, do not tell people of hopeful things if you are in a dramatic situation because that is a sure way that you become somebody else's. Some you then become the bystander and somebody else's main story. So yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Well, so for me, I have some really dazzling and wonderful news. So capital punishment. Yeah. And did it's run at Luna's here in Sacramento or Luna sold And did it's run at Luna's here in Sacramento or Luna sold and has retired and blessed the shit out of him for it. I'm very happy for him. The result was we were without a venue, which is perfectly okay as my partner is also with child. She had been punning for two for a few months there. Oh, right.

So the thing was was, okay, we're going to take a hiatus and we need to find a new venue. There is a specific venue here in Sacramento that is perfect for our show and has been for a long time. And for a number of reasons, we did not hook up with them. But now that my partner and I are on the same page about this, okay, might have something to do with having a different partner. Now we're on the same page about this. I am happy to announce that we have come into an agreement with the comedy spot in downtown Sacramento. Nice. First Friday of every month. So starting on March 1st, we will be down there. So if you were hearing this, that probably means you have about three months to save up your money for March 1st. So get down there. March 1st, the comedy spot for capital punishments, triumphant return. Very cool.

I am stoked. That's awesome. Yeah. So, all right. So, very cool. Last time we were talking, uh, we're going to, I'm going to take you, I'm going to to press you so hard tonight. Um, and it's going to start with Bugs Bunny.

So you're not even going to see it coming at first. Um, and I'm sorry. I truly am. And here we go. So in 1950, you're so hard. In 1950, Mary Melody's put out hillbilly hair. And it actually does feature Bugs Bunny, whereas the other one featured Elmer Fud.

And it mixes in the Rowan County War with the Hatfield McCoy feud. And there's a fair amount to cut through on this cartoon, so I'm going to set off size the cartoon first. Then I'll analyze the cartoon, and then I'll give you more historical contact afterwards. Okay. Because this one and the Rosanna McCoy movie both kind of bring up the questions about violence that come after the romance. Okay. Okay. Alright. Yeah. So Bugs Bunny is vacationing in the Ozark labeled the Ozark. Now, the Ozark does not traditionally include Kentucky or West Virginia.

But there you go. And this is what I was talking about last time as you've got a broadening of the geography, uh, so as to include the ster if you get to go along with the broadening of characterization, right? Yeah. So, uh, he bugs accidentally stumbles into the feud between Kurt and punkin head Martin. Okay. All right. The Ozarks actually span from Oklahoma to Missouri to Arkansas to Kansas. Nonetheless, it is attracted geographically and people's minds to the tug fork when it comes to stereotypes to laugh at. Okay. And I think that that's a fair analysis actually, because if I were to tell you, oh, it's someone from the Ozarks, even even you and I, knowing what we know would have in our,

you know, mental quick file. Yeah. A similar aesthetic to what we would see in the other area. what we would see in the other area. So yeah, I mean, there are some similarities and, you know, the demographic of who was settling in the region. There are some, you know, yeah, there's some commonalities. Yeah, the shorthand and the overlap is there. So nonetheless, you know, there you have it. So you've got the Martin brothers, who both mistake Bugs Bunny for being part of the Koi family. And this time the feud is a backdrop to what we're seeing and it's not central to what we're seeing.

So that's a new thing. And I find that interesting that in 1950, the feud is such a shorthand that it has now become a map painting, it has now become a backdrop. And as soon as B bugs encounters Kurt Martin, he gets shot and then asked a question. Be, let's see if I can do, be all a Martin or be all a coy rabbit. But you shot a potential ally.

I cannot emphasize that part enough. So of course, this leads to bugs making the obvious joke. My friends say I'm very coy, which doesn't do him any favors. And I believe it's pumpkin head who says square off. You showed me and use a feud non-account of I'm a Martin. And then he raises his gun to shoot bugs again. Of course, bugs bunny ties the gun in a knot, which Yeah, actually, it's Kurt, it's Kurt, uh, Kurt Martin that he does. Um, okay. Uh, and, and yeah, it, it, when he shoots, it gets undone and it shoots Kurt right in the face. Bugs walks away and he runs into pumpkin head Martin, the brother of Kurt Martin. Bugs reverses that shot as well. And pumpkin head has to shake the buckshot out of his hat and his ears. He also pulls a dead bird out of his

breast pocket. Okay. So they go hunting for bugs. And it's the all the language shorthand for these guys are rubs and listen to how these people talk Yeah, once they find bugs bunny they shoot and miss close bugs bunny goes and hides in a convenient shed marked danger explosives Neither seems to notice as they chase them in possibly showing that they don't know how to read And of course they need light inside so bugs lens them his lighter before ducking out at first. Kurt can't work the lighter and bugs shouts from a safe distance to keep trying. Then it works blowing them up and Kurt comes out quote. I think y'all are using too strong a fluid. Okay. So there's a lot there, right? Yeah.

Okay. So there's a lot there, right? Yeah. And the next scene, the two of them are chasing bugs. We'll get that critter if it takes till Doomsday. And as they run, totally barefoot, this whole time, by the way, past a general store that has the science square dance to Mari Knight.

So the good time to paint to Mari, yes. Yeah, all right. So then bugs comes out dressed in in drag and he whistles for them and he asks them pretending to be a beautiful woman to practice with him for the square dance in tomorrow. And of course, they're delighted. So there's a jukebox. And it appears to be the stage where the actual band pops up and calls out the square hand steps. The calls are within standard deviation of what we would be called out in a square dance. Although, quote, chicken in the bread pan, chicken in the dough, skip to the new my darlin does strike me as a little bit more parody than real. Yeah. Bugs, which is out of the drag for a fiddle in a hat. And he starts calling

out increasingly ridiculous directions to the brothers. They unfailingly follow him as he guides them outside. Quote, promenade across the promenade across the floor, sachet right on out the door, out the door and into the glade. Everybody promenade, step right up, you're doing fine. I'll pull your beard, you pull mine. Yank it again like you did before, break it up with a tug of war. Now when the drink and fish for the trout, dive right in and splash about trout,

trout, pretty little trout. One more splash and come right out. Shake hands like a hound dog or shake hands like a hound dog. Shake again, wallow around in the old pig pen, wallow some more and y'all know how wallow around like a big fat sal. So then they dance with the pigs and they do exactly everything he says. And so, you know, they're so, this is what you do in a square dance. Everybody has square dance to everybody. And in 1950, most people have gone through public school. They're square dancing.

That's a thing. I was going to say I wonder what Henry Ford would have thought of all this. I love square dancing. Yeah, really? Yeah. Yeah, because it's square dancing. It's good publicity. So they then dance with the pigs as partners, not knowing the difference at this point.

Of course. And then grab a phone. Grab a fence post. Hold it tight. Wamp your partner with all your might. Hit him in the chin. Hit him in the head. hit him in the head, hit him again in the critter ain't dead.

Wamp him low and Wamp him high. Stick your finger in his eye. Pretty little rhythm, pretty little sound. Banging your heads against the ground. So there's smashing their heads into the ground, they're hitting each other, they're doing it. I mean, all the things, right? That's fucking metal.

Right there. Really, I mean, I want to hear Gourd do this, you know, yeah, no kidding. Then he guides, he guides them and do it. Yeah. He guides or green jello, you know, yeah. He then guides them into a hail Baymaker and rhymes the whole way. They're exhausted, but they have to continue to follow the directions, of course, even as he leads them off a cliff. And when they land, it's at a river that separates two mountain tops. Oh, hey, mm hmm.

So more of their robes, more blending of multiple regions, cultures, no pun intended, but distilling them down to a stereotype and then broadly paying that for laughs. It's honestly not that different than Betty Boob or Elmer Fud or the spike Jones short. It's really not. Yeah. Yeah. So let's combine these feuds. Okay. When last we left the Hatfields and the McCoys, Sally Hatfield, John Cs and Rosanna's baby had died of the measles. Right. And John C, for a second, while I get my second beer, bang your head against the ground. Now you remember, John C had married Nancy, Rosanna's cousin and the daughter to

Asa Harman, whose murder might be considered the first death in the family feud. Right. So it's 1881. Right. All right. The following year in August, so August of 1882, although some would say September of 1882, another election day in Kentucky, the violence explodes again. Ellison Hatfield, the younger brother of Devilance Hatfield, the second lieutenant of the confederacy

who fought at Gettysburg. He was reportedly drunk and in a brawl that involved himself an unnamed Hatfield brother who wasn't devil ance or wall. My money is actually on good liest Hatfield since he had also brawled with famer and McCoy Famer McCoy earlier that day. But famer, Tolbert and Bud McCoy were brawling with Ellison Hatfield. So three and one. Some say it was them taking issue with how John C. had treated Rosanna. Others say that it was on provoked attack. Regardless, Ellison Hatfield was stabbed 26 times by the McCoy brothers and then shot Wow All within sight of everyone present in made one

Or did we decide it was mate one Yeah, I think it's made yeah mate one West Virginia Which wow might sound familiar Yeah, because that was the pro union town in Mingo County. Yeah. Now, Ellison didn't die for three days. And what's interesting here is that others say that the crime occurred on the Kentucky side of the river. But the historical marker is in mate one West Virginia. So I'm going to go with that. Okay. Okay. Meanwhile, the McCoy brothers were arrested by the Constables

and they were being transported to Kentucky for their crime. The marker about their capture. This is one that's funded by the state government. The marker about their capture by devil ants Hatfield and wall Hatfield and company states that quote Floyd McCoy witnessed his brothers being captured by wall Hatfield and taken to West Virginia. Wall said if Ellison died McCoy's brothers would be killed. End quote. So that means that the Hatfields went to Kentucky and abducted these three who were either en route to do process or awaiting due process. And the problem is a lot of sources disagree, but most seem to confirm

that the three never got to Pikeville, Kentucky, either way, they crossed the state line, which will matter later. Okay. They did get across the Kentucky. They were then abducted from there and taken back to West Virginia. Okay. Or the crime happened in Kentucky, and they were abducted from there and brought back to West Virginia. Okay, so they're in West Virginia now. Yeah. And having cross state lines. Yeah. An important detail.

So Ellison took three days to die. And after that, devilans with roughly 120 people, I was off by a factor of five. I see. A little bit. So he had a sizeable enough group as it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So imagine if I had a hundred fingers and toes, like I have 20. I was wronged by that gross of a number. Yeah. Yeah. So,

so, so, a little rich horror. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so older at tour or much. Yeah. Devilands Hatfield with with roughly 20 people, including Selkirk McCoy, took the three McCoy brothers out to pop all bushes just over the Kentucky border, tied them up and executed them for the death of Ellison. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Now they were left there for Randall McCoy to find them. According to testimony at a trial, nearly a decade later, quote, Tolbert was shot twice in the head three to four times in the body. Famer was shot in the head and 10 to 11 times in the body. And

the top of Bud's head was shot off and was down on his knees hanging onto the bushes. Tolbert had one arm over his face. Tolbert was 21, famer 19, and Randall Bud McCoy was 15. They were hauled home on a sled and buried in one coffin. Team and a Christmas. Now the thing is, locally from a a vigilante wear-guiled sort of perspective, most people were cool with this. Okay.

They had killed Ellison in cold blood and fuel, full view of everyone. Okay. Kind of they had it coming. Yeah, they may not have deserved it. Right. But they had it coming. And that seems to be the overall consensus in the area,

but some of that might be like, I don't want to get involved in this shit as well. Yeah. So obviously the McCoy's didn't agree with this and even did Kentucky lawmakers. After all, you kidnap people and then brought them back into the state to kill them. Yeah. Yeah. Now, after this explosion of slaughter, the feud simmered down in terms of violence, but not in terms of effort or hard feelings. It continued when Perry Klein, remember Perry Klein? That's very exact guy again.

Yeah. Now, remember, he had every right to, to like from, from the historical record, he seemed to have a legitimate grievance against the halffields and against Jim Vance. Yeah. Now by this point, he's a successful lawyer in, in, in Pikeville. And he helped Randall McCoy issue warrants for the arrest of those who'd killed McCoy's sons. Devoland's heard of this that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why partner is like, whoa, wait a minute, I get my cut first. Okay. So, devil ants, not wanting these warrants to go through, basically says, yeah, I'm going to side with that guy over there

against the guy that I basically had killed and or killed myself, sticking it to the widow even more. Now, this means that Randolph and his son, um, sticking it to the widow even more. Now this means that Randolph and his son Calvin, who was helping Tolbert's widow with the suit, um, uh, Randolph had insisted shortly after the murder of his sons, that the arrest of the Hatfields and their accomplices in the murder, uh, he insisted on that, which means 21 warrants were issued for the arrest of devilance and many others believed to have taken the part in the murder. Okay. So he's calling for it. And he and his son are traveling. Now, all of these guys that were a part of the pop-hop murders, they were indicted in absentia in Pikeville.

But given that this was Pikeville, Kentucky, and the Hatfields lived in Logan County, West Virginia, this would have meant deputizing and extra-diting. So the Hatfields were actually able to escape arrest for years, although Devolence did move several folks up into the hills to ensure that they would evade capture. Ultimately, this meant that the governors would have had to have conversations and agreements about how to go about this. And given the reach of Hatfield money and the reach of the money interested in the east, such a mass arrest of a wealthy and influential family would not sit

well with West Virginia. And a lot of the sources I looked at said that because these suits came in June of 1884, by Mary, the widow of Tolbert, that they would, that would cause Randolph and Calvin to gather in the same spot, that this actually ends up being the first direct attempt that devil ants made on Randall McCoy's life. Okay. If you stop McCoy, then all of these suits disappear and all of these warrants disappear

and you can go back to business. So, devil ants sent Cap and John C. Hadfieldfield, Mose Christian, whose name you might remember, Lee Wilson, Ellison Mounds, the son of Ellison Hatfield, so Ellison Hatfield's the one that just died, his illegitimate son, Ellison Mounds, and others to hide themselves in the brush on the mountain side above the road over which the McCoy's would travel when going home after the lawsuit

trial for Tolpert Widow. Cap stopped the son of the Justice of the Peace. His name was Tom Stafford, who's, by the way, his election was the election site at which, uh, Ellison Hatfield had been murdered. Okay. Okay. So he stops Tom Stafford and has him describe what Randall and Calvin were wearing that day and how their beards were cut in court. And of course, Stafford described them and then went about his way. He gets sent on his way. All right. Thank you. Off you go. Go home. Tell nobody we talk. Now the unfortunate coincidence here was that two of McCoy's nephews who had nothing to do with the feud were also

similarly dressed and barbred. So the result is that they get ambushed and killed. Wow. Now, because this is not fashion victims. Right. Oh, why did you have to choose the blue kingdom today. Like, yeah. And the thing is shortly after this time, it was recorded that Asaharman's second son, Larkin, was killed.

But the thing is, every record that I went through to find this said that Larkin was living into the 1930s. And the other thing is that no other son's death lines up. And the only thing I could think of is that there's so many names being repeated, it's possible that I just failed to be able to square the accounts. Because several monographs have stated that a son of Asaharman and by extension, therefore, a brother of Nancy's, remember Nancy is John C. wife and cousin of the three McCoy brothers who were illegally abducted, detained and executed for the death of Ellison Hatfield.

Yeah. Um, that that points to a specific, Lark McCoy being killed. Uh, and so while I don't doubt that a brother of Nancy McCoy's was killed shortly after her three cousins were killed, I cannot be reasonably certain that it was brother of Nancy McCoy's was killed shortly after her three cousins were killed. I cannot be reasonably certain that it was Larkin McCoy. In fact, I think this is an issue of people compressing time and mistaking names because there were a few times through the family trees where it was like, wait a minute, that is not the guy that you're naming.

Like, you know, there were times where they combined people. Oh, okay. All right. times where they combined people. Okay. So four years later in 1886, Lewis Jefferson, Jeff McCoy, the son of Asaharman and brother of Nancy, got into a fight with the postman, like you do. And he ended up stabbing and killing the postman. Oh, Jimmy fucking Christmas, which is a federal job. Yeah. And it's one that's given out as like patronage to state.

Okay. Yeah. Well, that's a guy named Fred Wolford, who was in Pike County, Kentucky, not West Virginia. Okay. Okay. Okay. Now at that time, Cap Hanfield, Hatfield, Devilance's second son was listed as a constable, but I could not figure out where still cap and his friend, Tom Skunkhead Wallace. Chase.

Yeah. Chase. Chase down Lewis Jefferson McCoy and shot and killed him on the bank of the tug river. I think that's the lark that got killed. I think it's a job. Okay. Okay. Now, evidently, Jeff had taken issue with the fact that after the failed attempt on Randolph and Calvin McCoy's lives that Wallace and Cap thought that Tom Wallace is

a so fucking weird. So Tom Wallace had an estranged wife. His first wife. They thought that Tom Wallace had tipped people off about the ambush on Randall and Calvin. about the ambush on Randall and Calvin. And that therefore Jeff was one of the people who was warned and he took, or he heard about it. And so he took issue with their killing in ambushing his cousins.

This leads to Tom and Cap, Tom Wallace and Cap going to his estranged wife and beating the shit out of her. Oh, that's lovely. And the thing is, she is a half sister to Nancy and Jeff McCoy. Okay. So they beat the shit out of her and her mother in full view of Wallace's father-in-law forcing him to watch. Oh my God. So I think that he and a friend tried to capture Tom Wallace and take him to Pikesville. But Wallace escaped leading to him and Cap now hunting down Jeff who would just try to capture

Wallace and hunting him down across the tug river toward West Virginia. hunting him down across the tug river toward West Virginia. Okay. The only reason I could think of for Jeff McCoy running to West Virginia was because he might have been seeking refuge at the home of Johnson and Jeff's sister Nancy at field. Okay. So he didn't make it to his destination. Skunkhead Wallace tech Tom Wallace was found dead the next year in 1887, although there are some sources that I read that had him living into the 1930s again.

But there's enough sources that I found that actually have him dead that given what's coming makes more sense. Okay. So there's a lot, there's obviously a lot there, right? Yeah. Which means then if you combine the murder of Jeff McCoy by Cap Hanfield with the likelihood that Cap's mentor Uncle Jim Vance was the one who killed Asa Harmon, Nancy's father

and the brutalizing of her half sister with a cow hide whip by Cap as well. That leads to Nancy having a hell of a reason to have an vendetta against that family. Yes. All right. So more on that in a bit. Okay. But I want to get back to the impact of the murder of Jeff, Jeff McCoy. Jeff McCoy was the nephew of Randall McCoy. Right. Because he and Nancy were the children of Asaharman, who is Randall's brother, right? Randall had just lost three sons a few years earlier. By some accounts that broke him mentally and he was a drunkard who never recovered from that trauma. Okay. And some other accounts have him by he, I mean, Jeff, some people say he never

got over the trauma of his father's murder. But other other people said that actually he was well thought of by both families and he stayed entirely out of the feuds, which some people were able to do. But for the quarrel with Fred Wolford that turned deadly, there's actually little account of him doing anything harmful to anyone. And Cap Hatfield's reputation for quick and brutal violence is a recurring theme in many of the sources. But still, it's now 1886 and another McCoy is dead at the hands of another Hatfield and his ally. Now at this point, the indictments and the warrants, which were never successfully served because of devilance's connection and influence in his own state. In 1887, Perry Klein successfully petitioned the new governor of Kentucky, Kentucky, a Mr. Simon

Bolivar Buckner, a former Confederate general who'd been captured and then traded for general George McCall during the Civil War. Oh, well, yeah. Um, so he, he being a Perry Klein, convinced the new governor to renew the indictments and seek the arrest of the Hatfields and their allies who were involved in the murder of the three McCoy sons. Further, he included the murder of Jeff McCoy suspects in those indictments, bringing the total up to 23 indictments. Now, wow. Yeah. Now, governor Buckner issued a reward for capture system, which brought a lot of bounty hunters to Pike'sville. Perry Klein seemed to take charge at this point, as Randall McCoy also faded

to the background with his grief. Again, you lose three sons. Yeah, it'll break you. So in here's where the story splits and reconnects very wearably two of Jeff's brothers named Bud and Jake heard that Tom Skunkhead Wallace was working on an extension of the railroad along the Big Sandy River and they went down there and captured him. Wallace was reportedly in the Pikeville jail for four weeks before engineering and escape that included the escape of John C. McCoy who was in jail for a non-few to relate it's tabbing. of John C. McCoy, who was in jail for a non-fewd related stabbing. Okay. So Wallace, who was an ally of the Hatfields, helped a

McCoy escape, who was also locked up at the same time as he was. But for a different stabbing that had nothing to do with the feud. Good Lord. All right. Now Wallace's escape indicted or incited Perry Klein to further efforts and application was made on his behalf by governor Buckner to governor of the Secretary of State of West Virginia, and he, John B. Floyd, was a nephew of the member of the member of President Buchanan's cabinet back in the 1850s. Floyd aspired to be his party's candidate for governor in West Virginia, and to that

end, he wished to have his home county of Logan solidly behind him. So John B Floyd knew that knew the Hatfields personally. And he had heard of the application to governor Wilson. He sent word to the Hatfields that there were bounties and that there were orders to extradite them from influential Kentucky and picking on this notable West Virginian family. Under John B Floyd's instructions, the Hatfield set up a petition saying that they were peaceful mountain farmers who had been greatly oppressed and abused by the relatives of Kentucky, Desperado named Randall McCoy. Further, they prayed that this petition would convince Governor Wilson to not further the ends of the Kentucky villain by giving

them over to be tried. Okay. The Kentucky villain. Yeah, and a despirado. Yeah, Jimi Christmas. So in the meantime, Hatfield allies and family members rode up and down the creeks and the branches of half of Logan County carrying the repeating rifles and their petition turns out every man they met signed that petition. Oh, well, all right. Yeah, well, yeah. I think I've got a repeating rifle with me. That's true. Yeah. All right. Yeah, all right. So this works to stall things and Governor Wilson was for a time persuaded to issue a requisition.

So while negotiations were pending between the two states and the two governors, Wilson seemed to draw them along on purpose leading to a series of telegrams back and forth with Governor Buckner upping the offer to $500 each for devilance cap and Johnson Hatfield as well as Tom Mitchell, who was for some reason under the name of Tom Chambers. And of Tom Wallace. Now in October of 1887, Governor Willis wrote to the county attorney, Lee Ferguson of Pike County saying that if $52 was sent to pay the expenses incurred by clerk John B. Floyd, while investigating the case, papers for the arrest of all the indicted men except for Elias, good lias, and wall Hatfield would be issued. And for his efforts and consideration of the

Hatfields, devilance named his son born the following February in manual Willis Hatfield. Okay. Okay. So in West Virginia, the Hatfields are very much enmeshed in the state executive branch, right? You've got the Secretary of State and the governor doing all kinds of things. I mean, and hell, he named his final, his, I think it's his last son born to the manual Willis Hatfield after the governor. Yeah. Now, since Perry Klein had the indictments reinstated and the rewards have been up for the arrest of devilance, Jim Vance, and the others of the Hatfield clan in Kentucky and Pikeville by, by governor Buckner, this served to attract bounty hunters to the region to apprehend the fugitives

in West Virginia and bring them back to Kentucky for trial. Okay. So you now have a different sort of person coming into Pikeville, Kentucky and starting to cross the tug fork river. for River. Okay. And it's now becoming clear that the Hatfields are feeling kind of hemmed in a bile of it. But it's not like they weren't prone to violence already. Like they tried to murder. Yeah. You know, Randall Randall McCoy and his son Calvin, who were coming back from a widow's trial against her business, her her dead husband's business partner that they had murdered the dead husband, you know.

So wait, the hatchfields have murdered the dead husband. Yeah, you remember the pop pocket. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So so many people killing so many people. Yeah. Well, it really, here's the thing though, there's not that many dead yet.

I mean, sounds terrible, but like we've though, there's not that many dead yet. I mean, sounds terrible, but like we've grown up on these movies, right? Yeah. So the three McCoy brothers are dead. Yeah. The McCoy sons. And then Tom Wolff or the the postal guy is dead. And so is Jeff, who everybody thought was Larkin McCoy. He is also dead. Ellison Hatfield is dead as is Asa Harman Hatfield. So if you add that up, I think that's six. And then six or seven. Yeah. And then with the death of Tom Wallace about a year later, oh, and there also was the guy who lied in the trial,

quite probably. Right. Yeah. Remember, because that was a self-defense thing, though. Yeah. But then those two brothers get killed. You know, no, one of them, I know they didn't actually, because it was squirrel hunting McCoy. Yeah. He lived. Yeah. So you've got fewer than 10 people dead, which, to me, sounds pretty good considering this is 1886 and the whole thing started in 1863. Yeah. But it's, it's, I guess it's like the in between stuff, the enmity that's, that's there in between. And the attempts at killing people are really high.

Yeah. Now it's about to get a lot worse. So, Perry Klein had the indictments reinstated and the rewards went up. Like I said, bounty hunters are in the area, and the feud is now becoming known nationally because newspapers are reporting the events because there's a lot of bounty hunters coming to the area. And it's depicting the Hatfields as predatory outlaws roaming the woods along the tug and big

sandy rivers. This localized feud gets sensationalized into a national Shakespearean story from a series of brutal murders. Now, with all of these bounties, you can imagine the type of people who are coming into Pikesville and who start crossing the tug on the regular. And among these was a man who claimed to have ridden with Jesse James, a man named Frank Phillips. Really? Mm-hmm. Interesting.

Yeah. Now, in the interim, John C. Hatfield had continued his flandering on his wife Nancy, who divorced him sometime before 1895. Frank Phillips, a duly appointed state agent to handle the reception of those indicted, and against whom the warrants had been issued, led raids into West Virginia repeatedly to capture those who had been listed on for the bounty and amongst those that he had captured was a man mistaken for his steps on Not Phillips's steps on just a man mistaken for his steps on due to the steps on being born out of wedlock as well as sell Kirk McCoy and Mose Christian and wall Hatfield

Devilances or brother, who was himself a justice of the peace. All of that was by December 20th of 1887. Frank Phillips was getting shit done. Yeah. Now, because of the speed and alacrity with which he moved on New Year's night, just after the full moon, the Hatfields and their allies deciding that this was the quickest and best

way to get rid of all the indictments that were leading to the raids that were capturing their side, they figured the best ways to kill Randall McCoy in his family home. Okay. And well, certainly a dramatic way to handle things. I mean, it's an escalation that nobody could see coming, you know, yeah. So some people have it that devilance was the mastermind of the attack and that I think is up for debate because he definitely was not there. Um, he had a flaring up of a long issue that he seems to have been struggling with since being in the traders army. Um, but it's, okay. It's entirely likely that as the active patriarch in the Hatfield family, then

as the chief employer of many of those who were their allies, devilans Hatfield at the very least sanctioned the New Year's Night Attack. But by all accounts, it was led by Uncle Jim Vance and Cap and Cap Hatfield. So the details of this, this is where you start to pick up your body count.

Jim Vance led eight other men, although some accounts have it closer to 20. Some idiots would say a hundred. So this is going to include Johnson and Cap Hatfield as well as Ellison Cottontop mounts, the illegitimate son of Ellison Hatfield, who is actually rumored to have had developmental delays. And they all went to Randall McCoy's home in Kentucky. John C accidentally fired at the house before they were ready to attack, warning the Randall and his family inadvertently, and then the two sides exchange gunfire, and then advance lit the house on fire. My guess is Molotov cocktail style on account of what people use for currency. Many of Randall's children actually successfully fled into the woods, although

it fled into the woods, although because it was New Year's day evening or New Year's night, it's really cold. And so a lot of them suffered from frostbite in the next few days. Okay. Because they were sleeping. McOy's daughter, Alifair, who was 29 at the time and had suffered from polio as a child, therefore with somewhat disabled. She was shot to death by cotton top mounds who himself was, like I said, considered to be developmentally delayed at the time. Hence the name cotton top because it was brain is soft. So as she's trying to flee, he kills her because he was told to shoot anybody who runs and he didn't distinguish because. Right. Yeah. And McCoy's wife Sally was badly injured. Some say solely by

Uncle Jim, others say that John C. and Cap were also involved because she attempted to comfort Alephair. Um, regardless of what actually did occur, it's known that she suffered a severe blow to the head, rendering her mentally incompetent for the rest of her life. Oh my God. Yeah. Randall McCoy's son, Calvin, was also killed trying to escape, but Randall was actually able to escape the house in Heiden in nearby Pigpen at the insistence of his wife before she got attacked because she figured if he's gone, they

won't hurt anyone else. Name she was wrong. Yeah. So reports of the attack made newspaper headlines across the country and again, this flared into the the Hatfield, McC, feud up in people's imagination. Mark Twain even included a similar feud in Huckleberry Finn. Right. Yeah. Okay. Again, reporters traveled to this remote region of the country and to sell newspapers. They exaggerated the details of the conflict. Following this attempt on Randall McCoy, several things happened in quick succession. Largely due to the murder of 30-year-old Alifair McCoy, the crippling of her mother, Sarah McCoy, a lot of things just started speeding

up and accelerating. Much of Pike County took issue with the violence against the women during this phase of the feud. So kill the brothers because they stabbed the shit out of your brother. Okay. Yeah. Go to their house. Yeah. Kill the daughter. Cripple the mother. Kill another son.

Not okay. Yeah. And if you're doing the math, there's a clear line here. They're kind of, you know, it's very gendered, but at the same time, there's a, you went to the dude's house and attacked his family. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like the other things, okay, okay, gross, but fair play. But now, like what, you know, and me personally, I'm like, none of it's okay, but, you know, I don't, I don't live there. So, yeah, I would point out at this point, Randall McCoy has lost five children. Yeah. It is wife. Like, yeah, functionally. I mean, you know, well, actually, he's lost six children, but he's lost five to gunfire.

Yeah. You know, um, but yeah, he lost lost six children, but he's lost five to gunfire. Yeah. You know, um, but yeah, he lost Rosanna by this point too. Yeah, she died. Just Jesus. Yeah. So, um, first Perry Klein and his wife Martha took in the surviving McCoy's in their home. Okay. Uh, secondly, Frank Phillips immediately got the okay from the Kentucky

governor, Buckner to gather up a posse of 38 other men, including Bud McCoy and James McCoy to other sons. Yeah. Uh, to go into West Virginia and get the half fields. Then he also up the reward, which summoned more bounty hunters to the cause. So now it's January 8th, 1888. Okay. Now so by this point, we have seen the body count go up by two, as well as a horrific beating and wounding of the matriarch of the family, as well as a horrific beating of a man's ex on the front of her now husband. So January 8th, 188 Frank Phillips and at least one posse member tracked down Uncle Jim Vance and Cap Hatfield. Uncle Jim refused to surrender and by most accounts he was shot in the head. It's

speculated that witnessing this led to cap fleeing for quite some time actually. Interestingly, Uncle Jim had bought and sold a lot of land in the heart of what was known as the billion dollar coal field. Among the people who were brought back to Pikesville by the Posse were that was sent under the direction of some of the largest financial stakeholders in the area on the Kentucky side of the river. Nine of them just so happened to all the owners of land along the route of the coming railroad, including local gym. within 90 days of Uncle Jim's murder or killing actually while serving a warrant because well, I don't know. I don't know extra edition between states very well. So his death within 90 days of that Kentucky financiers would all would own all the land of the indicted West Virginians with the exception of devilance hadfield's land.

indicted West Virginians with the exception of devilance had fields land. Huh. Yeah. Funny that remarkable. Rewardable, isn't it? How the capital class manages to, to, uh, you know, make a buck off of literally everything? Look at these roobs with their feuding. And I think that is a underlying feature of why we're so interested in this feud. Because we're looking at that part, the visceral part, because we're being directed to by the people who own the newspapers and the railroads. Yeah. Yeah, totally makes sense.

Yeah. All right, so the day the next day, so Jim gets killed on January 8th, the next day of the January 9th raid takes place that nabs wall and at least two other members with minimal bloodshed, two other members of the Hatfield clan, minimal bloodshed. There's another raid against the Hatfield home, but Devil Lance wasn't there. So this time, there's a raid on the Hatfield home, which if you remember, used to be Perry Client's home. Yeah. So the posse stays there and waits for them. This includes the McCoy's and just the women are there. And they're like, yeah, Devil Lance isn't here. The men are all gone.

There's no way you're gonna catch them. And they stay there just to make sure they don't come back just in case he comes back the night, you know, that night. And he didn't. So then 10 days later, you get to what's called the Battle of Great Fine Creek. So again, up to December 20th,

a bunch of people had been nabbed. Yeah. Um, and then the New Year's Eve massacre, then a week later, then 10 days after that, like things are just pop up, pop up, pop up. Yeah. So you have what's called the Battle of Grapevine Creek. And the Hatfields responding to the murder of Jim Vance and trying to end the feud in the best way possible, which is to kill the other side. They ride out to attack the Phillips posse, which had at least two McCoy's in it. And the Phillips posse was also angling to add the feud by either appry-hending or killing as many half-fields as possible. Yeah. So grapevine creek is close to mate one. And some of it was the land that devil ants and Perry Klein had argued over years and years and years before.

Yeah, two decades before. So there's a pitched gun battle here. And it's the largest fight of the whole feud, which it is really rare to have a pitched gun battle in a feud. Yeah. You don't see those many of that many. You see murders. You see people skulking about. You see. Yeah. Predation. Yeah. Right. But you don't see an actual pitch battle. Here it was though, there's only two people people killed in the whole battle, um, that involved more than 40 people with guns. Um, although that speaks to several things, the density of the cover, yep, the, the difficulty of the terrain and, and, I mean, I, I hesitate to say this because we've been programmed to call these people roobs, but you got to wonder about the competence of the of the of the

combatants like there's a reason that ambushes work really well. You're usually on them. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, you know, these are people who are used to hunting game. That's true. That's, you know, so you do have good use of rifles and such, but it's a whole different thing when when you're shooting your target is shooting back. Yeah. Yeah. And actually, I I'm going to retract that that third factor there because we know from

because we know from studies that Rand corporation didn't Vietnam would just lead to some weird, well, maybe not weird, but anyway, which led to significant changes in US military doctrine that for every lethality caused every for every person shot and kill in combat. There's some ridiculously high number of bullets fired. Yeah. And we also know from anecdotal and and you know, broad spectrum of other evidence that in warfare, soldiers very frequently flinch or aim intentionally high. And there is, there is a subconscious bias to ward not killing. Yeah. And that's, and that soldiers have been like trained too. So, you know, I rescind my third statement, but it was sheer amount of ordinance on display. It's pretty remarkable that fatalities were that low. Yeah. Well, and it's one of those things that y'all been killing at each other for years. And you have a spate of just like from 1881 to 1888, you're averaging one a year, you know, you're having three

here, one there and stuff like that. But like, but those are all much more up close murders. Yeah, you know, and again, and, and, and there's, there's a significant difference in I have a burning hatred for this person, these people. And I have my enemy in position to to Dele death below, as opposed to like a gun fight. Yes, which is a very different beast. So very true, very, very true. which is a very different beast. So very true, very, very true. So 40 people with guns, only two people get killed. Although at the end of the battle, a deputy, Bill Dempsey, who had supported the Hatfields,

he had been shot up quite a bit and he was executed by Frank Phillips after the battle. And it was, yeah, he was actually begging to just be allowed to bleed out, asking not to be shot any further. Phillips did not listen to said request. Now following the engagement, Phillips withdrew to Kentucky, having succeeded in rounding up nine members of the Hatfield clan. So this was successful in that they captured nine people.

Okay. Governor Emerson Willis Wilson of West Virginia. He entered the fray and at least to all appearances on the sides of the Hatfields. Wilson demanded from the Kentucky governor Simon Bolivar Buckner, that the illegally taken prisoners be returned to West Virginia. You did not abduct them legally and lawfully, therefore their arrest is null and void, therefore they need to be returned. Since this posse that Phillips had led didn't hold up West, hold up to West Virginia standards and had crossed over into West Virginia land to abduct the

Hatfields and their supporters. He said this, this issue is a issue of West Virginia sovereignty. Okay. So what follows is a series of telegraphs back and forth between Buckner and Wilson that led to Buckner stashing units of Kentucky's guard to the border area to protect against retaliatory raids, either by West Virginia troops or by supporters of the Hatfields. Oh wow. Because that's what Wilson was implying in threats in the telegraphs that he was sending. And he also complained to the federal government. Wow. So here's America 25 years after the Civil War give or take and a family feud is threatening to escalate things again. Wow. Yeah. And all of this is happening in prime real estate for coal and timber that the railroads are going to be back to country as they never had

before. Uh huh. Yeah. We yeah. So finish this, you know, get this, get this figured out so we can get in there and make, make dough. Yeah. Yeah. Now, uh, among the nine men who were taken to Kentucky to stand trial for the murder of Alifair McCoy, uh, and the others and Calvin McCoy, uh, and the brothers and you know Jeff Was wall Hatfield the justice of the peace in Logan County And a man not without some connections in the government of West Virginia Governor Wilson demanded the return of the prisoners by arguing that they had been denied due process and had been illegally extradited by Kentucky

And Turkey argued so here's the problem with Wilson's position denied due process and had been illegally extradited by Kentucky. And Tucky argued, so here's the problem with Wilson's position. Possession is 9 tenths of the law. Yeah, you might be decided to be right. They still have to actually comply. Yeah. So and that's why I wonder if Wilson has really got his heart in this. Cause he also like is like, if this gets finished, even if it's an injustice,

we can get business rolling through here. Yeah. You know, and, and we can make you a lot of money, Hatfield, like also that, but like more importantly, like we need to get this railroad going through here. Yeah. So, uh, uh, Kentucky argues that the prisoners were in fact in custody and underendipement and that therefore that process needed to be filled out first, and that therefore the state of Kentucky had no obligation to release them to West Virginia or to any other entity, regardless of the circumstances of their arrest. So you arrested them illegally. Therefore, everything you've done since then has been wrong. Whereas Kentucky is like, well, we have them now. And possession is my chance of the law. Yeah. Even if we did it wrong, we still have to take care of business, Kentucky style now.

Yeah. So in April of 1888, the case gets appealed by Governor Wilson to the Supreme Court of the United States. Okay. So the Supreme Court issued no finding regarding the legality or illegality of the arrest, but they did agree with, uh, with Kentucky and their argument that no federal law existed, which would prohibit the prisoners from being tried for their crimes committed in Kentucky, regardless of the nature of the events, which resulted in them being in custody. So. So you're saying the Supreme Court fucking haunted. Yeah. Well, and they're saying, look, you, you do have every right to do justice in Kentucky. Yeah.

Regardless of regardless of how the arrest happened, you have a right to your justice. So at the same time, though, I feel like that's a cop out though. I mean like I like I understand yeah the the The basic legal precept that no, no, you were this is a government of Kentucky. You have you know Do process within your state that yeah, okay But there's there's a definite You know interstate commerce clause, you know, federal supremacy kind of issue going on here and like right you know, interstate commerce clause, you know, federal supremacy kind of issue going on here and like, right, you know, you're just going to sidestepping all of that to go, well, no, you know, totally ignoring all of the, all of the, you know, thorny issues that are actually involved in this. We're going to affirm that like, no, you can, you can try these guys, but, we're not, we're not going to do anything with, with the issue of, you know, interstate, extradition, extradition. We're not, we're not going to touch that. But like, you can totally try

them. Like, hug you. Can you like, you know, stand for something here? You know, well, one way or the other, like pick a fucking side. Yeah. And you know, it's, it's, it's not that different from, let's say that the, the police sees items in your house illegally and then use them as evidence, try you for whatever crime. Yeah. That's not legal. No. And, and that has been established repeatedly. This is similar to that. If you arrest them illegally, then you're holding them is then born of an illegal. Yeah, the Supreme Court said, no, you just need to make sure that you do the arrest properly now. So they were released due to the improper arrest and then promptly arrested.

Crocus shit. I mean, you know, okay, you're free to go. By the way, you're under arrest. I know you're under, yeah, because now you're on Kentucky soil. Yeah. So, you're on Kentucky soil. Yeah. So Fuck that. Uh, so Let's a chicken shit. Punch.

Yeah. Come on. And it was a seven to two punt as well. And favor from talking to me. Yep. See, the only, you know, here's the thing. I hear that and my response is exactly what my response was, but it's only

because you and I have grown up in an era and lived our adult lives even more in an era of, you know, five, four, yeah, decisions. This is like, no, things were not as partisan back then. This is all of the justice is being kind of legal cowards. And you may remember that a few years later, Plessy versus Ferguson is going to happen. Yes, this is true. You know, um, you know, I always think Plessy versus Ferguson is earlier than it is. No, no, I know.

Oh, it's not logically, I know, but emotionally, I'm emotionally, you want to put it like right after dreads, Scott. Yeah. But no. So all right. So the nine men who are in custody get released and then get re-arrested proper like. And now they are in custody pending trial. The deputies raised their pinkies when they did it. I hope, you know, I hope I hope they like proper like that things like with with perfect diction. Yeah. Yeah. Red off of cards.

I genuinely hope they opened the door to the jail. And then said you were here by arrested and then close it and a shuttor. Yeah, like just on a cheeky level. So. So now these guys are in custody, pending trial. The feud was effectively over in terms of the violence. Notice that devilance had failed was not amongst the prisoners. And neither West Virginia nor Kentucky authorities sought his arrest after this despite the fact that everyone knew where he physically was. Well, because who has the money? Right.

And also we've got enough. We've got enough. Like, let's just get. Yeah. Okay. Kind of. There's nine of them. Let's just get over.

Also, Cap had already left. And I think John C had actually come back from Washington territory later. And he ended up in custody later. Actually, John C ends up serving 13 years. And then he gets paroled for one of two possible reasons, either because he saved the warden's life by killing a fellow inmate because of course, or he reduced his own sentence due to an appeal over procedure, which you know, I can see either one. Yeah, I can legitimately see either one. Yeah. you know, Sean C

All of the depiction of Sean C's role in this in this whole thing. Yeah come comes down through the historical record to me as being kind of Like a really poorly trained golden retriever. Yeah, like excited his tail knocking stuff down, it's his dick. But yeah, he's just, he's just an idiot. Yeah. Like, that's how he's depicted. I don't know how, how true to him that is. But I do know that after Nancy left him in 1888 and took up with Frank Phillips and Mary Frank Phillips. Nate.

Wait, wait, wait. Oh, yeah Phillips and married Frank Phillips. Nate. Wait, wait, wait. Oh, yeah. The same Frank Phillips, the same Frank. What the fuck, Nancy? Dude, if you have that much of a vendetta against them, you're going to go have sex with the guy and Mary, who is bringing in all the Hatfields all the time.

Okay. Yeah. All right. I see that. Yeah. But yeah. Also, of course, Jesus. All right.

But but John C. did re-marry twice more after that. So. Okay. John C. Yeah. You you have you have a fly. I need you to keep it closed. Right. Zippers have been invented now. Yeah. Can you just do us all a favor? Right. And no, no, you don't get a zipper, John, see, because that's too easy to get open.

We need you to button that thing closed. Yeah. we can't believe it that way. Can you please? Yeah, that's just, oh my God. Oh, so at the trial, seven of them were convicted of involvement in the murders of the McCoy children and set us to life in prison. Okay. Wall Hatfield, the Justice, the Peace from Logan County,

specifically may not have been involved in the attack for which he was charged, but he was convicted nonetheless. A lot of this trial seems to have been for the totality of the feud. Yeah. And Wall was involved in the kidnapping of the three McCoy sons and their murder.

Yeah. So okay, we didn't get him for that. We'll get him for this. He wasn't there. It doesn't matter. Let's just come on. Move it. Yeah. We all know everybody, everybody in on both sides of this river, we all know exactly what has happened here because we've all been talking about it for nine on 30 years. Right. Like just for the for the love of God and all that's decent. Just lock these guys up. Yeah. Now, according to most accounts that I found of the feud, once wall was convicted, he communicated with his brothers asking for their assistance and getting him out of jail, but they refused to over the fear of being arrested. He died in prison under circumstances which still remain officially unknown, but this happened just a few months after the trial.

It could be anything from getting TB to one of the guards is a friend of the McCoy's, like, and anything in between. Yeah. So yeah, according to Walls Great grandson, an official of Kentucky prison system, reviewed the records at the request of a relative of the Hatfields, and reported to her that he was placed in a cell block alongside several convicted members of the McCoy clan. Yeah. So there's that possibility. The cause of death in the location of his grave were never

released officially to the Hatfield family who still question the nature of his role in the few. Okay. Yeah. Now, doc D. Mayhen, the son-in-law of Valentine and the brother of client Mayhen, one of the eight Hatfields convicted. He served 14 years in prison before returning home to Louis the son Melvin. Pliant Mayan, the son-in-law of Valentine and brother of

Doc, served 14 years in prison before returning home to rejoin his ex-wife, who had remarried, but then she left her second husband to be with client again, which Ouch. Yeah. Ellison cotton top mounts was the only one that was not sentenced to a life of imprisonment. Okay. Yeah, this is because he was led to believe that by admitting to killing Alifair, the jury would look at his mental disability as a mitigating circumstance and give him a lesser sentence. Okay.

This did not happen. Instead, he was the first person in 40 years to be taken legally to the gallows and he was the last one in that county to have it done. Son of a bitch. And this really gets it like my antipathy for the culture of certain areas. The one person that you killed was probably the one person that deserved the extramercy of the court. Yeah. The deserved additional consideration. Right.

Yeah. And that's the one that you tricked into being your Judas God. Well, oh, see, I love your use of that phrase. Thank you. Because that is exactly what that is. There has to be pergation. Right. Somebody has to die.

Yes. And this is the lowest-hanging fruit for us to get there. Yeah. And yeah, that's, that's C. Are you familiar with the Reddit group? Am I the asshole? A-I-T-A? Yeah, I've heard of it. Yeah. Okay, so some people write stories about A-I-T-A. And like, you know,

am I taking crazy pills? Am I the asshole here or what? And the responses are, why T-A? You're the asshole. Mm-hmm. N-T-A, not the asshole. Or, not the asshole, or not the asshole, or everybody's an asshole. ETA. And everybody's the asshole here. Like there's nobody. gets away from this not being shitty. Right. You know, I have, I have a certain level of sympathy for Randall, because like look at what this man lost over the course of this whole debacle. Oh, yeah. Like, oh my God.

But like everybody else involved in this is just is is a dick bag. Like there's nobody that comes out of the pathetic at all. Yeah. You know, and and the the need for not just the two families involved, but everybody around them to have a scapegoat, to have a judis goat, to have somebody who's like, okay, we can, we can only put this, it's like subconsciously, we can only put this thing to bed when somebody has been officially killed has been officially killed by a third party. Right. You know, authority has to step in and exact a a blood tithe. Right. You know, to to pay for the sins of these two families. And it's like, and the guy you pick is him. Yeah. And everybody nods their heads and, okay, well,

there you go, you know, so sad, but, you know, had to happen. No, it didn't. Fuck all of you. Yeah, you chose, you deliberately chose this. Yeah, yeah. So thousands of people attended his hanging in Pikeville despite not being able to see much because up close, there was a base, the base of it was fenced in to comply with

laws that had been passed recently prohibiting public executions. So they built a fence around the part where you'd actually see him swinging. So you could see basically like shoulders and up from the top of the gallows. And then they'd pull the thing and he would drop. And still thousands of people gathered around to to to hear the trap door open pretty much. Yeah. So according to the Boston Globe, quote, the hanging took place half a mile outside of the pretty mountain town at the base of a low hill. Now, just I'm going to break in here for a second. If it's at the base of the low hill, just go up higher on the hill and you can kind of see in, right? Yeah. And it's the thousands, right? The scaffold was enclosed as required by law,

but the enclosure was only 20 feet square and uncovered. The side of the hill formed a natural amphitheater, enabled the spectators to see everything that was going on. You know, who was in attendance, by the way? Random McCoy. Nancy. Oh, I bet you Nancy was too. You know, who is an attendance, by the way? Random a goancy. Oh, I bet you Nancy was too, but random a coins there. Yeah, I can. I get that I totally get.

Yeah, but there are pictures of him there. A really photographed. Yeah. I will drop one into the chat in a few minutes, but there are pictures of him there at the hanging. It's, it's, it is wild. Now before dropping, cotton top reportedly said, quote, the Hatfields made me do it. And, quote, and many, many people actually think that it was actually Cap Hatfield who killed Alaphair, but Cotton Top got the blame. Okay.

Yeah. Now Nancy McCoy had married Frank Phillips in 1895 after spending many years as his lover because you remember she left Johnson as early as 1888. Yeah. Yeah. Both had actually left their spouses to be with each other, which is a strange pairing, nonetheless, they produced several offspring together. Frank Phillips continued with the behavior he had exhibited all of his adult life, even

with Nancy at his side. And by that, I mean heavy drinking, womanizing, fighting and gambling. In 1898, he got into an argument with a friend of his over another woman, and the argument led to the friend shooting him in the hip, which developed into gangrene. That led to his leg being amputated, and he still died as a result of the wound. Three years later, Nancy died of tuberculosis, and the two were buried side-by-side in Pike, Kentucky. Pike County. This is going to sound awful, but it couldn't have happened to a nicer couple. Yeah, it's, uh, it's one of the, like you said, man, everybody's an asshole here. Like

maybe, maybe Nancy doesn't entirely deserve. I don't think she does. I'm floating in that. Yeah, I don't think she does in a lot of ways. It's weird to marry your cousin's boy toy after he's abandoned you and it's after he's abandoned her. Yeah. And it's it's again, you know, like there's so many things of this that are just so twisted and fucked. Um, but like, you know, I've explained that she had plenty of reason to hate the, the there's so many things of this that are just so twisted and fucked. But like, you know, I've explained that she had plenty of reason to hate the, the, the, the Hatfields and too. But there's nothing showing evidence that she was any kind of an architect

of anything. So remember, she married Johnson when she was 16. Yeah, that's all right. So, all right. But she dies of TB. And so then now, Randall McCoy ended up a broken and griefstricken bitter old man by the time of battle of grapevine Creek. He was actually president cotton tops execution, but that didn't seem to improve his life much as it turns out. Afterward, he got a job operating a ferry and living largely alone. His wife's condition worsened over time and she ended up dying probably around 1890. He lived until 1914. Oh, not Almighty. Yeah, having lost seven children in the course of the feud. And then he died because he was badly burned by a cooking grease fire

in his house and died a few days excruciatingly painful days after. So no, I figured out there's there's one person here who's not the asshole. Oh, okay. And that's the matriarchy of the McCoy's. Yeah, she's, she's not the asshole. Yeah, like well, yeah. Oh my God. And as much as he's not blameless, I still feel really badly for Randall McCoy. I, yeah, the, I, I cannot even imagine dealing with the level of loss. Oh, it just, he suffered. At some point, I can only imagine like you just get the most numb to it on some level, like where you're just like, like it's still, it can't not hurt. Yeah.

But at that point, you're just like, find me at the bottom of a bottle. Yeah. You don't have the emotional, the emotional energy anymore to have a reaction. Right? Yeah. So devilance Hatfield was never brought to justice for his part in the feud at all. And he seemed to only grow in power in Logan County afterwards. His timber business, his amassed wealth, and his influence all helped him to enjoy the twilight of years.

He baptized late in life. And when he died, his air is paid for a life-sized Italian marble statue of him for his gravestone. Okay. So that is, that is, that is so poetically appropriate. it because through this entire thing, devalence is as a matter of fact, in 1880s into, you know, 1870s into 1880s reincarnation of a renaissance Italian nobleman. Oh, yeah. Like it's it's all feudalism all the way down. All of his all of his, you know, Capo de Tuti Capi, all of his, you know, his his gunman took the fall for him. Yeah. And and he was insulated by his wealth by the land he owned and by his position. By the land he stole. Yeah, well, and again,

medieval talent, noble, right? Yeah. You know, how did your ancestors get this land? Well, they fought for it. Right. Yeah, we showed up and took it from the people living in the Po Valley. What do you want? Yeah. Come on. What the hell? At the, how did they get it at the point of a sword? What? It's, you know, it's, it's, yeah. And maybe on some level, that's, that's also part of the appeal of this story is the echoes this shit from from so far back and you know, the parallels to Romeo and Juliet become that much more clear when you would you think about it in that kind of review it through that kind of lens. Maybe. You know, I don't know.

Maybe. You know, I don't know. So what I've noticed through this is that for all of their claims of honor, of family honor and stuff like that, and maybe it's not even claims that they made, but all the claims that have been laid at their feet. Yeah. But all the claims that have been laid at their feet. Yeah Cap left and didn't ever really face Justice of any kind. Yep. They all decided not to help wall out because that would mean they would get arrested Yep There's you know this this idea of you well, family, nothing's more important than family.

Like, we have to kill people who's written our family. So, you know, when the chips are down, y'all don't seem to do fucking much for your family. No. So, you know, Ellison dies and leaves his son, which, you know, ostensibly his son gets cared for by everyone else, but at the same time, why are you taking somebody who has developmental delays on a vendetta attack

against a family's house? Like, you're not looking for a fourth for golf. You know? Yeah. So, so for all this, this talk of family loyalty and shit, it doesn't seem to go universally. Well, I mean, it never does. And I think maybe we're ascribing it to them, to be honest, we're romanticizing and objectifying them in certain areas. There is romanticizing. There is objectifying, but there is also there is an element of honor culture.

You have honor culture or you have shame culture, right? Yep. Anthropological terms here. And in honor culture, it's remarkable how flexible honor culture can be under certain circumstances. Right? And, you know, honor culture is, and I'm painting with a broad brush to save time. Sure. But there is this hyper masculine consistent appeal to violence, to save time. Sure. But there is there is this hypermasculine consistent appeal to violence

to solve issues. Yes. There's that low threshold of violence. Yes, it's incredibly low threshold of violence. There is this again, hypermasculine toxic masculinity kind of denigration of the feminine. And there is this idea that, well, you know, the role of the role of the men and the family to clan, whatever is to defend the women, but the moment the women step out of line, the women are the ones who get punished for shit. Right. And the women's the women are the ones who wind up suffering consequences a whole lot more frequently. Oh yeah. Then men do. And and so the the self visualization of individuals within honor culture, I think, is one thing. And then the observable behavior and the reality of what honor culture winds up doing is another. And so, yes, all of this, you know, well, you know, this was a family feud, you know,

in there, the honor of the family was paramount. A lot of that is outsiders romanticizing it and outsiders objectifying the people involved, dehumanizing the people involved and oversimplifying everything. But I do think in their own heads, the patriarchs of these two families probably had thoughts about that. That like kind of protect the family, we got to do this. That and the other thing and they used, they would certainly, I would bet a whole box of donuts that devil ants had field. If you were to question him about,

you know, the decisions he made of the stuff that he sanctioned, the justification he would give would mention defending his family, defending, you know, the honor of his family name, whatever. He'd totally use that for justification. And then the moment he brought up, well, you know, what about your brother who you'd let die in jail? Depending on circumstances, you know, you might look down the barrel of a gun because you just insulted him or he might just walk away and not answer, right?

So, you know, I think, I think there's a, there's a mixture of self-justification based on these ideas out of honor, culture, and us, and everybody else as outsiders romanticizing this whole story. I think it's both. No, I do not disagree. I think also, I don't want to overlook the fact that it's so convenient how much this honor mattered when it came to land acquisition. Well, historically, it always does. Like, I mean, look at the hundred years war. Yeah. What happened between the plantagenets and the French. what happened between the plantagenets and the French. And like, I mean, I know there's certain subsets of historians would be like, you say the plantagenes, the French like

they're two different groups. Yeah, and you, yes. Yeah. Like between these two factions of French speaking, you know, Normans, the like between these two factions of French speaking, you know, normans, um, you know, they, they justified honor, culture and, and the, and all of the appendages of it. I think wind up being used as justification for might makes right. And the guy with the most swords at his disposal, the guy with the most guns that is disposal, the guy with the most money to pay for all the above. Right. Is the one who always has the most honor at stake or because that's convenient. After the fact he's the one whose honor dictates the story. Yes, that too. So, and that just goes back to the victor gets to write the history. Mm-hmm.

So, yeah. Well, and again, most of the sources that are available are Hatfield-based sources, right? Yeah. And so I... Well, because so many of them are boys got fucking killed. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah. You know, you will eliminate enough chronic

layers. True. Well, you eliminate the, you know, the, the people that would then produce the children that would then do the writing. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so, so you've got that, um, I, I will say in my research, I spent a lot of time online going to a lot of different

websites and stuff like that. I didn't get out to any archives or out to any libraries or anything like that, but based on what I was able to pull together online, I tried to, you know, I mean, shit, I read to you from the will of Perry line's rich Jake, you know, like, like, the normally the story starts with the murder of Asa Harman. Like, now let's, let's go back further. Yeah. So that takes us to June of 1951. Um, there's a movie called coming round the mountain that gets released. I already know this going to be a shit show. It's Abbott and Costello. Man. And it's directed by Charles Lamont, who seemed to almost specialize in films that made fun of people

from that area. Um, so, like, you know, interesting niche of really. Yeah. Wow. All right. So Abbott plays a theater agent who booked his client, the Manhattan Hillbilly herself, Dorothy McCoy. He books her at a nightclub to perform at the same time as an idiot escape artist who gets stuck in his own prop on his first night. His name is the great Wilbert. He's played by Castello. He yeah, he screams for help, which Dorothy recognizes his scream. She recognizes his scream as the McCoy battle cry.

Are you kidding? No. The McCoy's like they can't catch a fucking break. Not really. Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't know if you know, but I mean in this research, I found audio records of Rebels telling you what their battle cry was during World War or during the Civil War like guys who are live in the 20s Yeah, or like this is what our rebel battle cry and like at the 50th anniversary of Getty's you, you know,

where the hand shaking and all that kind of shit. Yeah. It's one of those kind of get-togethers. And they're like, yeah, when you boys would hear that, would you say, oh, we knew we were gonna get charged in bubble. And so there's a lot of rebel yells, rebel battle cries.

So that is a thing. And so she recognizes it as the McCoy battle cry. So so that is a thing. And so she recognizes it as the McCoy battle cry. Um, and so the whole comedy is broadly played. They end up having to go back to Kentucky to find the gold of that old squeeze box McCoy. Um, their long dead patriarch, uh, and, and his buried treasure. Um, and they have to talk to Granny McCoy, of course, and they have to have a Turkey shoot competition with the nearby Winfield Clans champion devil Dan Winfield. Oh, wow. All right. Also in the movie, there's a voodoo. There's a love potion. There's a love potion. There's witchcraft. And of course, Clark Winfield, the son of devil Dan Winfield and Dorothy end up falling in love. Eventually, there's a wedding and

the Winfield clan shows up itching to fight and a stray bullet breaks the love potion jar, which causes devil Dan to fall under its sway inadvertently and fall for Wilbert McCoy, who's been in love with Dorothy for who's in love with Clark, but the trod de Chlora daughter of Caleb McCoy, the patriarch of that clan. Oh my God. Laura, who's called Matt, for reasons I couldn't figure out, she shows them a map hidden in Wilbert's concertina, which then leads to a mine in Winfield territory. Devil Dan, of course, helps them enter the mine, still feeling the effects, but also figuring that cooperation is better than feuding when it comes to finding the money that the other family buried on his property. The whole party eventually breaks through the rock, finding themselves in a vault filled with gold. It's Fort Knox. The whole party eventually breaks through the rock, finding themselves in a vault filled with gold.

It's Fort Knox. And they all get arrested. You know, the funny thing is that's a very money Python kind of ending. Well, it's it's it's a bit and it's still. I know. I know. But wow. All right.

But in this movie, you still have feuding, Star Cross lovers, old patriarchs and guns, but just like the cartoons were, right? And so again, the story. I'm, yeah, you mentioned the guns and I just think John Millius guns, that's mostly what I added to the script a lot of guns. Yeah. All right. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry.

Yeah. No. So all of these things are essentially trappings that help us to like use these people as a plot device to play for comedy. Okay. So it's the same tropes. Mm-hmm being regurgitated. Exactly. Now, in 1960 in January, which tells me that something was creatively lacking or present

at this time, we had the 19th episode of Bonanza called The Gun Men. Oh, no. This one takes place in Kioa Flat's Texas and Haas and Joe get mistaken for the slays, gunslinger brothers who've been hired by the McFadden's to kill the half fields. Oh my God. Okay, wait, hold on. Oh, okay. So this is Benanza.

Uh-huh. Okay. They're, they're a Nevada family like they end up in Kioa flats. Okay. They, they're on a cattle drive. Yeah. Into Texas. Okay. Anyway, yes, or they're going to to bring back. I forget. Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. So anyway, they get mistaken for these, these guns for hire right, right. The slaves. Yeah. Yeah. So they're hired by the McFaddenes to kill the Hatfields in town. And so they end up captured and they have to figure out their way out of a feud that has nothing to do

with them. Yeah. Eventually, Sheriff tells Haust and Joe how the feud began. And it was because 30 years ago, the Hatfields hog disappeared. And that night, the McFaddenes who didn't own a hog had pork for dinner. who didn't own a hog had pork for dinner. Okay, well, that's a that's a call back to right, but it's also an inversion. And I'm not sure if they did that on purpose for any particular reason, or they wanted to cast the Hatfields as the agreed party because the writers would have grown up reading more sympathetically about the Hatfields. Mm. But either way, there you go.

So Haas and Joe realize that there's going to be a massacre between the feuding families and that the town will be hurt for it. So they essentially convinced the women to do a say by and women thing, plus Lisa Stratta, standing between the two feuding clans and refusing to do anything womanly until both sides agree to stop fighting. Uh, the beautiful and young Amanda McFadden tells the gunslinging hero of the Hatfields ants at field that she's waiting for him to come to her, but he better not come with a gun in his hand. And of course, ants isn't a fool. He drops the gun and hurries over in the fudes over because pussy.

You can know there were some reasons to stop fighting. Yeah. And you know, this was a reason that got people fighting in the 1880s. So yeah. So there you go. Yeah. Now in December of that same year, December of 1960. Also on TV, the Andy Griffith shows ninth episode aired. Okay. So that's two shows showed up in Mayberry. Yeah. That's two shows in the same year, both kind of buccolic, right? Yeah. I'm bringing up the feud. I mean, Andy is clear. I mean, he they go down to the fish and hole.

Like it's it's maybe very, but it's yeah, it's rarlish, you know, Rola, Jason. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. So it's just as buccolic as you can get. It's, but it's small country town, you know, like yeah, right so By this point

It's you know TV depictions of hillbilly seems to be growing a popularity and again star cross lovers The Carter's and the wake fields they're feuding and their kids want to get married. And both patriarchs break up the marriage that Andy is performing, and they perform it, they break it up at gunpoint, and nobody gets killed because police back then were less awful somehow. Okay. So of course, you know, Andy and Barney being the police in question. Right. But yeah, yeah. Okay. Now, of course, in this one, the feud has been bloodless for 87 years, taking it back to 1873. I don't know if they did that on purpose or if they just were like four generations back, whatever. Yeah. And of course, nobody remembers how this one started. So, you know,

Oh, for such times. And and because Andy Griffith is a bit country, if you remember, there was a boy that was friends with Opie for a bit who got into trouble. And Andy's solution was to tell the father to beat his kid, like take him out behind the woodshed, as these are the solutions, right? Yeah. So this is the era in which the stuff is being written.

Yeah. You know, so Andy suggests that the patriarch settled the feud with one duel between them. And Andy says, now, you know how folks in these parts feel about their feud. Now what if it was to get out that we had an 87 year old feud to going, going on here with Naria killing to show for it, why we'd be the laughing stock of the state. So again, I think this actually gets back to what we saw with spike zones and what we've seen with the cartoons of the Disney one as well. They like doing this. They like feuding.

It's part of their culture. It's their thing. Yeah. So, of course, the old men both run off and the young couple gets married. And the thing is, people do feel a certain way about their feuds in these types of areas. Um, while the Hatfields and the McCoy's were gobbling up all the press at the time, the Rowan County War was a short three year feud that claimed 20 lives and wounded 16. Holy cow. Right. And we don't hear shit about it. And it lasts for just three years. And it's got a bigger body count and a bigger wounded count. And it went from 1884 to 1887 in Eastern Kentucky. Honestly, four counties north of West Pike County.

Wow. And then there's the Underwood whole Brook feud, which led to 20 more people dying and killed all the males of the proper underwood clan completely. Oh shit really. Yeah. There's a guy named John Martin who was a part of that clan, but he's obviously not an underwood, right? Yeah. And so he was able to go and start up the Rowan County War when he shot and murdered Floyd Tolliver, who was a political rival in that county. But this feud was ended by a marriage between the families actually and not found any further. Oh, all right. There's also the French ever soul feud, which also took place in Kentucky from 1887 to 1884. It's almost like there was a tag out going on. Three counties south and west from

Pike County. So four counties north and west three county south and west, you've got multiple fused. And this one involved involved the families of Benjamin Fulton French and Joseph C. Eversel. And this feud led to the death of about 20 men. And it was ostensibly about a woman. The clerk of a store that French had owned, the store that French owned, not the clerk. He saw a woman and was smitten by her, but Shagrinne, because she was enjoying the company of Fulton French.

So he went to Eversole and spread a rumor about French, claiming that French said that he was looking to kill Eversole. So the clerk pissed that French was getting it on with the girl that he was looking to kill ever soul. So the clerk pissed that French was getting it on with the girl that he liked, went and told another guy, French wants to kill you. This leads to ever soul gathering protection to him via his family and kinship and friendship relations. And that causes French to do the same because rumors were abounding that this was preparation to do harm to French. And more likely though, like, so that's what we were told, it's more likely about

coal rights. Because if you consider the timing, this particular feud found both principles in the few dead because of it, although at very different times, Joseph ever sold was murdered in April of 1888. Benjamin Fulton French ran into Eversole's widow, Susan Combs Eversole, and her son Harry in the lobby of a hotel in 1913. Harry pulled out a pistol and shot him dead in 1913. Actually, no, not dead, I apologize. because he was actually French was always wearing a bullet

proof vest wherever he went. So it was not a fatal shot. But at that close range, he managed to shoot French in the spleen. French died a year later from the wound. And then Susan paid the fine for disturbing the piece. And that was about all that happened as a result. Good Lord. Now, less do you think that this is a Kentucky only thing in West Virginia, the heart's creek region, which includes Lincoln and Logan counties, the Lincoln County feud killed four people between 1882 and 1889. The Lincoln County feud killed four people between 1882 and 1889. This is one that's going on between the broom fields and the dingus is, I know, D-I-N-G-E-S-S.

Dingus? Sure, the dingus is. Okay. I know. It's like, you're going to be kidding me. Between the Dildos and the Shiffoles. All right. So, so the Brunefields and the Dindjus is are on one side and the adkins is or the adkins, the Adams, the Hall, the Rungan and the Nestor families were on the other. I assume there's a lot of inner marriage going on there. Yeah. Now the sides had so many cross-pollinated vendetta's amongst and between each other that no family existed without allies amongst the family that they were lined up against. Yeah. Yeah. This specific feud led to that county get it's getting its lines redrawn. Really?

Wow. And if we want to keep it appellation, eastern Tennessee and western Virginia, near the Comparison gap saw the green Jones war, which had so many similarities to the Hatfield McCoy feud, a guy named Asa, people who served on opposite sides of the war who got killed, a pig's contested custody, star crossed lovers, someone getting stabbed 25 times, although all of these were in the head. What the? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I'm still.

Yeah. I'm going to have to stop you right there. It's it's one thing to hear. Right. Somebody was stabbed. Okay. A lot of time. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. 26 times. Like holy shit. That's all. Oh my god. That's horrible. 25 times in the head. That's a whole other level of nasty. Really is. That's really like it's not that much soft tissue there. No, you got to really fucking mean it 25 times. You have to be committed. Yeah. I like, I'm at the age where like midway through a session of self loving.

If I'm not really feeling it, I'm just going to quit. Like, which is like, you know, it's just not going to have right now. Good enough. Yeah. You know, this is somebody holding somebody and stabbing them or chasing somebody. I don't know which one's worse. Like, but and having the energy to stab them 25 times in the head. Like how angry do you have to be? Right. Like, it has to escalate, right?

Like between times 15 and 20. Yeah. Like what, what? And what stops you at 25? Like, you just, that's got to be fatigue, right? Like, or the ship my labor like, you know, yeah, or the knife breaks. Yeah. Let's let's be honest.

Like as you said, there's not a lot of soft tissue going on there. You're going to get something wedged somewhere and and like, oh my God, that's awful. Yeah. And I've been so decentralized to it that I'm laughing. As I'm talking to you about this. Because to hear that somebody got stabbed in the head is quite something. Because that's just comically awful.

Yeah. So in addition to that, you have houses under siege, you have children getting killed, and it lasted a long time. This one lasted up through the late 1890s. You could make the argument that this was actually a more bloody feud because upwards of 60 fucking people died in this feud. What?

Yeah. Wow. It stayed within the state of Tennessee, um, uh, after, and after a time, uh, when the governor had to threaten martial law to shut it down. Do you think the fact that it stayed inside the one state might be part of the reason we haven't heard about it compared to the, to the, the, had field McCoy likely likely because the other ones also stayed within their counties. Yeah.

There, there is something about. A local thing as opposed to something that explodes and expands out over. You know, it's like how Eddie has said, like, you know, if you kill like two million of your own people, well done, kill two million of someone else's people, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa. So yeah. Yeah. So, so Andy's off the cuff remark about how people feel about their feuds and they want them bloody pretty salient. Yeah.

The sitting where Mayberry is kind of quasi located. Yeah. So I'm just going to say, I find it interesting that since you, you know, lived in the, in the, in the cesspit hole that is North Florida, Libby County, baby. I was in the county seat of Bronson, 804 people in my family was there. 800 when we left. Yeah. Two separate, how two separate cemetery still because you don't want blacks and whites to rot together. Yeah. Yeah. That being said, I'm, I'm surprised you didn't mention the barber, Miss L feud.

Oh, I, I kept it, I kept it localized to that area, but that few did in fact come up. Okay. Yeah. All right. But go ahead and give the quick and dirty. Yeah. Well, because the only reason I mentioned it is because when my parents were telling me at some point about their time in Milton, Florida, they, they remember their being murders committed while they were living there. Yes, that were

still connected to the barber, Miselle feud that dated back at that point a hundred years. Yes. You know, so yeah, the the half-fields and McCoy sucked all the air out of the room in terms of press coverage, but this, this was not an isolated incident. Oh, no, there were kind of an element. I want to say there were over 30 deaths in that one. Yeah, it was a short feud too, if I recall. Yeah. So yeah, it was, uh, and my favorite part,

how Florida can you get? There were no convictions. None. All right, you all done. All right. That's North Florida for you. Yeah. Yeah.

Crazy. So yeah, I think that's where I want to leave it actually because, uh, when we return, I like starting with a cartoon each time. When we return, we're going to talk about the Flintstones. Because of course, we're. And that's the thing is like, okay, like there has not been a serious movie made since what the the one that I think I opened this episode with or closed last episode with. this episode with or close last episode with in 1946, 49, 49, right? So it's 49, 14 year old female lead.

Right. There's no movie up through. And I mean, honestly, I'm going to spoil it for you right now. There's a movie in 1975, but it doesn't hit the theater. It says it made made for TV movie. So the last time there's a feature film of it was 49. It's actually, I'm trying to find the next movie that like hits the theaters. It's almost all cartoons and sitcoms.

And of course, Bonanza. And then you get to the made for TV stuff, uh, the made for TV movies and, and, you know, finally, but then we dive back into cartoons. It's really interesting considering, uh, so this is what I'm gleaning at this point. You tell me what you're gleaning in a second. Okay. Or such a imagination capturing feud, for one that was all over the place,

it seems to be used for comedy more than anything else. Yeah. And it's never actually taken on as a serious course of study. It's, oh no, I'm sorry, there was one other film since 49 it was Abbott and Costello. But, you know, yeah, just pretty good. For the point, yeah. Yeah. But so for something that sees the imagination so much, it was so intertwined with the fabric of what connected our country, that is railroads and shit. Yeah.

It certainly gets played for laughs more than anything else. Yeah, well, and I think the reason it does is there's a there's a perfect storm of factors kind of involved. There is a classism. There is a classism. There is, there is, there is a cultural elite, just in general, a cultural elitism, with the people that do most of the writing of mass media are coming from a very northern, very, at least, at least north end of mid-Atlantic states, because New York isn't technically New England, but it's very much Yankee, kind of conception of what southerners in a very broad brush kind of way are about. And this is a subgroup of southerners that we're that we're talking about. So there's the elitism there.

There is urban versus rural. I would say that's more than the southerner thing because these people are played as hill people. It is not, it is not people speaking with a draw so much as, you know, that it is, it is backwards. Yes. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. No, that makes sense. That's fair. But it is urban versus rural. And again, it's, it's, it's the media coverage is made by people who own large conglomerates of media as well as, yeah, going. Yeah, the next thing that I was going to bring up is the, you know, the people who walk away in the case of Hatfields and McCoys, it's Devil Ants Hatfield who's the one who has the most money, who, you know, by virtue of having the most money, number one is capable of insulating himself or, you know, just having the

resources means he kind of wins. But then beyond that, because he owned the land and the people who are driving the narrative are looking for property rights, mineral rights, all of that kind of stuff, he's somebody who is closer to them. kind of stuff, he's somebody who is closer to them. And so he doesn't get caricatured in the same way, he doesn't get vilified. Perhaps to the extent that he deserves, because like everybody in his neighborhood called him devil for a reason, like, you know, and, you know, it occurs to me, as I'm, as I'm talking about this, that like the, the, we haven't gotten to talking about it yet, because, you know, chronologically, it's, it's always off. But,

uh, Kevin Costner portrays devilans had field in the 2012 mini series. That'll be in the next episode. So don't go too much. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But, but he also, Kevin Costner also plays the patriarch of a cattle family. Uh huh.

Oh, I get into a stone. How he starts. Yeah. Okay. All right. So like, you know, oh, there's some parallels going on here. Mm-hmm. And there's a certain category of noodle figure who gets romanticized in a, I don't

want to say lestie humanizing, but a less denigrating way in these portrayals. And, and devil an Tattoo is, is that goto, um, compared to his, you know, his opposite number, who's, is really the one who lost the most and suffered the most. As we've already talked about, Randall gets portrayed as this sad sack, loser. There's something very telling about that that characterization. Mm-hmm. Yeah, uh devil. Yeah, I often portrayed as cunning, whereas Randal is often portrayed as pathetic or pitiful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, so yeah, there's there's so much going on with the decisions about the way everybody involved in this gets portrayed. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and again, we haven't gotten to that particular time. Yeah. So, yeah. So, all right.

Cool. Well, what you want to recommend to people to read? Right now, I don't have a recommendation to give. Yeah, I'm in the middle of grading a whole of a student papers, so I'm not spending very much time reading anything fun. How about you? Well, this won't be fun, but I do think it's worth worth getting people to read. It's called the hate next door under cover within the new face of white supremacy by Matt's and Browning and Tawny Browning.

He was a cop who, if I recall correctly, he lived in Arizona. And he's an undercover detective. And so he would infiltrate these white supremacist groups. And his wife is, I think, a neurologist. And she would, like, help explain those kinds of things. And it's a, it's kind of a memoir of their experience of his infiltrating those, those groups and and getting people brought to justice and and that kind of thing. So I dare say it does have a hopefulness to it, but you have to slog through a lot to get there. Yeah, I was going to say some of that has to be harrowing to read quite so, quite so. So that is what I will be recommending. So do you want to be found anywhere? I do not.

All right. I'm going to tell people to go on March 1st to the comedy spot to go see our triumphant return of capital punishment. So cool. And then where can they find over the moon to hear that that's that that's on I'm very happy for for you and everybody involved in that project. That's that's great. Yeah. So where can they find this podcast? They can they can find us collectively at webobba Wobba Wobba. dot geek history time.com.

We can also be found on the Apple podcast app or on Spotify. And obviously you've found us somewhere wherever that might be and wherever that is, please do take the time to subscribe. Please do take the time to give us the five star review that you know we've

heard. And yeah, other than that, I think I think that's that's that's the big message there. And so well then for a geek history of time to add, I'm Deemine Harmony. for a geek is to add, I'm Deemian harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s.