Infamous America - HATFIELDS & MCCOYS Ep. 4 | “A Savage Region”

Episode Date: September 29, 2021

A deadly raid on New Year’s Day launches the bloodiest month of the feud. The Hatfields inflict more casualties on the McCoys, but then the McCoys unleash “Bad” Frank Phillips to hunt down the Hatfields. While raiding parties race across the Tug River, the governors of Kentucky and West Virginia spar over extradition. Join Black Barrel+ for early access and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. This show is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please visit AirwaveMedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin’s World, Once Upon A Crime, and many more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My relentless sleep problems have always come from an overactive mind. I lay in bed at night with my mind racing from one thing to another, and then, of course, I have a brainstorm about something new. That lights the fire, and then I'm in real trouble. To calm my mind, the only things that have ever worked with any consistency are sleep gummies. Sleepy Time Advanced Gummies from Mood.com come in various combinations of THC, CBD, and CBN, so you can get something that's very low in THC, but higher in CBD, which helps turn off the stress,

and CBN, which is the thing that makes you sleepy. The brain shuts up, the racing thoughts stop, and it's off to sleep. Mood is federally compliant. The gummies are legal and delivered right to your door. At Mood.com, get 20% off your first order with our promo code, Infamous. Go to Mood.com and use the code infamous to get 20% off your first order. your first order. And they have a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Mood.com promo code infamous. Devil Ants Hatfield sent another letter to Perry Klein. The first one had been an apology for the

murder of a McCoy. It seemed to express genuine sympathy and regret. This one was different. It was a warning. It said, we take no pleasure in hanging dogs, but we know you and have counted the miles and marked the tree. It was signed, Logan County Regulators. The letter claimed there were 49 men in the group, and the name was chosen carefully. Regulators was an old term that was used by local groups who resisted government oppression.

In this context, the name was an indictment of Perry Klein. It meant Klein had gone beyond the local community and involved powerful outsiders in the affairs of the Tug Valley. Those outsiders had no business sticking their noses into this conflict. Perry Klein had marshaled the leaders of Pikeville and the governor of Kentucky against the Hatfields of Logan County, West Virginia. The regulators were going to defend the Hatfields. But the letter and the threat of the regulators did not intimidate Perry Klein, especially when he had his fellow ward bad Frank Phillips on his side. Very soon, Klein and Phillips would attack the Hatfields in their own sense.

separate ways, but not before the Hatfields inflicted more damage on the McCoys. From Black Barrel Media, this is Infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this is a six-part series on the most infamous family feud in American history, the Hatfields and McCoys. This is episode four, a savage region. Colonel John Dills and his two wards, Perry Klein and Frank Phillips, had urged the governor of Kentucky to take action against the Hatfields of West Virginia. Two weeks after Perry received the ominous letter from the Logan County regulators, the governor acted.

He issued warrants for the men who had executed Ranel McCoy's three sons. He sent extradition request to the governor of West Virginia, and he offered rewards for the Hatfields. But the action that had the biggest impact came from the local level. Perry Klein pressed the Pike County court system to appoint a special deputy to go after the Hatfields. He had the perfect man in mind, the other ward of Colonel John Dills, Bad Frank Phillips. Frank Phillips was 25 years old in 1887. His father had been killed while serving under Colonel Dills in the Civil War. After the war, Dills became the legal guardian of young Frank. It was common in the Tug Valley to attach nicknames like good or bad to the front of someone's name. In Frank's case, his nickname was well-earned.

By the time he entered the feud at age 25, he'd been divorced twice. He was called bad Frank Phillips because of his cruelty, his public drunkenness, and his poor treatment of women. As the new special deputy, he wasn't driven by a desire to maintain law and order. He just wanted to hunt down Devil Anz Hatfield. He was Perry Klein's muscle, plain and simple. But Perry Klein, as a lawyer, probably wanted the fourth. formal channels to run their courses before he turned bad Frank loose.

The Governor of Kentucky petitioned the Governor of West Virginia to extradite the Hatfields. The Governor of West Virginia delayed any action on the petition. And the credit for the delay filters down to Devil Ants Hatfield. Anz pushed one of his local supporters through the election process, possibly by intimidating voters at gunpoint. Ants got his man elected to the state legislature. From there, the man became assistant secretary of state, which put him right next to the governor. Devil Lance told his man to tell the governor to refuse the extradition.

The governor began using a series of delaying tactics. They were legal, but they were also infuriating to Perry Klein and Bad Frank Phillips. On December 12, 1887, Perry and Bad Frank decided they were done waiting. They gathered a posse and crossed the tug river into West Virginia. They had bench warrants for the Hatfields, but they were sidestepping the formal extradition process, which made their actions illegal. But for all their bluster about capturing Hatfields, they came home with just one man, and he was a McCoy. They caught Selkirk McCoy, the man who supposedly defected and voted with the Hatfields during the infamous hog trial 10 years earlier. The people of Pikeville, Kentucky, were not thrilled with the result.

They didn't like bad Frank anyway, and now they wanted him gone. He was stripped of his special deputy status, but that didn't mean he was gone. He still went on raids against the Hatfields, and they would have deadly consequences soon. But at the moment, Devil Anz tried to broker a peace agreement. His clan was nearly in a panic over the raids by Phillips and bounty hunters and other detainers. detectives. He wanted it to stop, so he sent another message to Perry Klein. He had first tried an apology to get Perry to back off. Then he tried a threat. Now he tried a bribe. If Perry got the governor to withdraw the rewards for the Hatfields and call off the hunt, Devil Ants would give Perry

$225. That would be about $6,500 today. Perry Kline took the deal. But unfortunately for devil ants, it didn't stop the hunt. The governor of Kentucky would not back off. Either Perry had lost his influence with the governor, or the governor thought he was in too deep to stop now, but the bribe didn't work. So when Plan A failed, the Hatfields went to Plan B. It was a bad plan to begin with, and it set the stage for a war. The Hatfields had been sleeping with one eye open for quite some time now, and they were tired of it. They never did. knew when the next bounty hunter might get close enough to take a shot. They didn't know when the next raiding party would cross the Tug River. Their attempts to stop the extradition process by going

through Perry Klein had failed, so they decided to go to the source. Rannell McCoy. Even though Perry Klein was more powerful in Pike County, the feud was between the Hatfields and the McCoys. If the Hatfields could do something with Rannell, they might be able to end the feud. The Hatfields decided to raid Rannell McCoy's farm. For the first time, they would go directly at Rannell at his home. And like many events in this story, we don't know what they meant to do, we only know what they did. A group of younger men led the posse.

Johnsey and Cap Hatfield were at the forefront. They brought two of their younger brothers with them, as well as four more supporters, and the most controversial figure of the feud, Jim Vance. As the saga of the feud was remade over the generations, Jim Vance became a larger part of the overall story and became a prominent villain on the Hatfield side. Over the years, he went from being a smaller character on the edge of the story to being a leading man.

He became a kind of Darth Vader to Devil Ants' emperor. He was Devil Ants' uncle, and he was 12 years older than ants. His role grew out of the story of the murder of Harmon McCoy. In the earliest days, the best guess was that Devil Ants' militia unit killed Harmon McCoy, the younger brother of Rannell. And if it was Devil Anz's unit, then it was easy to assume that Devil Anz pulled the trigger himself. But in later years, as stories about the feud became wildly exaggerated in the newspapers, the role of Jim Vance expanded.

Eventually, the story said he was the man who murdered Harmon McCoy, even though military records strongly indicate he was nowhere near Harmon's house at the time of the killing. But once that idea was accepted, his role grew even more. He became an all-fire, colorful character who hated McCoys with a passion. Before long, he sounded like the most savage man to ever walk the Tug Valley. Whatever his involvement was up to this point, he was definitely about to step forward. Jim helped lead the raid on Ranah McCoy's farm with Jonsie and Cap Hatfield. And whatever they intended with the raid, it led to more

devastation for the family of Rannell McCoy. On New Year's Day, 1888, the gang of Hatfield stopped at Cap's house to eat. It was somewhere between four and five in the afternoon, which meant the sun would have been setting and the shadows growing deeper in the Tug Valley. After their meal, they continued the journey to Ranel McCoy's farm. They crossed ridges and creeks as the full moon rose high in the sky. When they made it to the edge of Rannels' property, they tied their horses and put on masks. Now they were hooded figures moving through the shadows of the trees. Rannels' house was a large cabin built in the old dog trot style. It looked like two small cabins connected by an open breezeway. Cap Hatfield and a young man named Ellison Mounce

guarded the back door. Two more Hatfields watched the kitchen door that opened into the breezeway. way. John C. Hatfield and Jim Vance took the front door. When they were all in position, someone shouted to the McCoys to come out and surrender as prisoners of war. But they might not have had the chance. According to legend, Jonsie Hatfield was pretty drunk that night, and the story says that he fired the first shot. When the bullet slammed into the house, Randall McCoy's son Calvin leapt into action. At 25 years old, he was the oldest son in the house. He ran up to the top story of the home with his Winchester rifle and fired through a window. Calvin managed to hit Jonsie Hatfield in the shoulder.

On the ground floor, Ranel McCoy fired out the front door. As the father and son team poured fire out the front of the house, Jim Vance ran around the side of the house. He found some cotton drying, and he struck a match and lit it on fire. He shoved it into a hole in the front of the house. Tom Chambers tried to help the arson attempt. He grabbed a large pine knot from a wood pile and scrambled onto the roof. He lit the pine knot and tried to smash it through a shingle in the roof.

But a blast from inside knocked him down and blew off three of his fingers. After that, Tom was done fighting for the night. He dropped his torch and ran into the woods. His attempt to help burn the house had failed, but Jim Vance's had been successful. Flames ripped through the front of the McCoy home. The McCoy women used up all the water in the house to fight the fire, but it still wasn't enough. They needed more from outside. Rannell's 30-year-old daughter, Allifair, ventured out of the kitchen door.

She shouted that she recognized Cap Hatfield's voice. Reportedly, Cap and Jonsie Hatfield told Ellison mounts to shoot her. Ellison was mentally challenged, and he was easily challenged. eager to fit in with the Hatfields. He often accepted a dare or did what he was told without question. And he might have done that now. Someone fired a shot, and Alifair collapsed to the ground. In the house, her sister screamed that Alifair had been killed. Sally McCoy rushed outside to her daughter. On the way, one of the Hatfields cracked her over the head with a butt of his gun. The act was usually attributed to the villainous Jim Vance, but it's hard to know for sure.

As Sally lay on the ground bleeding, she realized her daughter was dead, and she was about to lose another child that night. As the house burned behind her, Calvin McCoy burst out of the cabin and ran for the corn crib. He was shot in the head and died instantly. His dash from the house was thought to be more about saving his father than saving himself. As the attention was focused on Calvin, Randall McCoy escaped the collapsing house and fled into the woods. The Hatfields fled the scene as well, leaving the McCoy's dead or injured or scattered behind them.

When the Hatfields made it home, Ellison Mounts, who was known mostly as Cotton Top, said, Well, we killed the boy and girl, and I'm sorry of it. We have made a bad job of it. There will be trouble over this. There was more trouble than he could imagine. Neighbors saw the fire against the night sky. They hurried to the McCoy farm and found the home in crackling ruins.

They helped Ranel with his wife Sally. She'd been badly wounded in the attack. Her skull was severely injured and her arm and hip were broken. But the injuries and the loss of a home weren't as bad as the loss of life. Two more of their children were dead. that made five children of Ranel and Sally McCoy who'd been killed in the feud. Tolbert, Bud, and Farmer had been executed by Devil Ants. Now Calvin and Alephair had been killed in a raid led by Devil Anz's sons.

The raid became known as the New Year's Night Raid, or the New Year's Massacre. Two days after the killings, the McCoys buried Calvin and Allifair in the family cemetery about 300 feet from their ruined home. Sally McCoy still hadn't seen a doctor, and she was suffering badly. Rannell loaded her into a wagon and drove her to Pikeville. He took her to the home of Perry Klein. Rannell's daughter, Rosanna,

whom he'd basically disavowed years earlier, was living and working at the Klein home. She cared for Perry's children, and now she began to nurse her mother back to health. For Rannell, the move to Pikeville was permanent. He never lived on his farm again. With the McCoys in town, Perry Klein and Frank Phillips sprung into action.

Klein went first. He wrote letters to elected officials and sent a detailed account of the raid to newspapers. Newspapers across the country ran wild with his story. One headline shouted, A terrible tragedy perpetrated in Pike County by Desperanos. Another just said, a murderous gang. Public opinion quickly turned against the Hatfields. The facts were awful enough, but reporters embellished the details with new levels of horror and intrigue.

A reporter for the New York world wrote, I have been in murderland for ten days. No one would believe that there in this country was such a barbarous, uncivilized, and holy savage region. The reporter was T.C. Crawford. He was the only one who actually sat across the dinner table from Devil Ants Hatfield. Reporters from all over the eastern seaboard flocked to the Tug Valley to get the story of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, but Crawford was the only one who secured an interview with Devil Ants. The other feuds in the area got regional coverage, but the Hatfields and McCoys went national.

feud violence was big business, and it sold newspapers like hotcakes. Readers seemed to be just as interested in the lifestyles of the people of Southern Appalachia as their feuds. Reporters filled their stories with lurid details of exotic mountain life. It was like a glimpse into a secret society, and readers in New York and Chicago and San Francisco and everywhere else ate it up. And this is how and when many stereotypes of the people. in Appalachia began. Perry Klein and various McCoys started to tell the story of the feud from their perspective. Across the Tug River, the Hatfield started to tell it from their perspective. You'd probably be shocked to hear that they didn't always line up. Unfortunately for Perry

Klein, his media campaign backfired. He had hoped reporters would come to the valley and see the Hatfields as primitive criminals. Conversely, he hoped the reporters would see Pikefields would see Pike as a progressive town that was ready to embrace new and modern industries. But it didn't happen. Reporters painted everyone in the area with the same brush. They called the people white savages, who never closed a day without a drunken fight. Some wrote that all women were revolting in appearance and personality. As Perry Klein's indirect attack began to fail, bad Frank Phillips began a direct attack.

He went straight at the Hatfields on their own land. Frank Phillips still considered himself an agent of the governor of Kentucky, even though the people of Pike County had officially fired him as a special deputy. Ten days after the deadly New Year's raid, Bad Frank gathered about 30 men for a counter raid. Many of these men were not McCoys. They wanted the reward money, or the action, or both. They rode across the Tug River to West Virginia in search of how,

Hatfields. The first people they found were Jim Vance and Cap Hatfield. Jim and Cap and Jim's wife were walking on a trail between Jim's house and Cap's house. Jim's wife was out in front and she spotted the posse first. She yelled back at the two men to take cover. Jim and Cap began firing at the incoming posse. Frank Phillips scored a direct hit on Jim Vance. He shot Jim in the stomach. Jim screamed at his wife. and Cap Hatfield to get away. They ran through the woods and barely escaped. But Jim was gutshot.

He wasn't going anywhere. The posse had won the brief battle, and now Jim Vance was at the mercy of Bad Frank Phillips. Bad Frank walked up to Jim and shot him in the head. The killing of Jim Vance delayed whatever extradition process might have been in the works. After the violent New Year's raid conducted by the Hatfields, the governor of West Virginia could no longer defend them.

But after Perry Klein had been bribed, and Frank Phillips had killed Jim Vance, the governor clearly couldn't trust the McCoy faction in Kentucky either. He was stuck. Devil Lance had not been part of the New Year's raid, and he hadn't been present for the murder of Jim Vance, but he was still the leader of the clan. He sent word to the governor of West Virginia

that the score was now even. He said there was just as much, evidence against the McCoys as there was against the Hatfields. It was time to stop the extradition and end the feud. Meanwhile, Bad Frank Phillips felt emboldened by the killing of Jim Vance. He and his posse thundered into West Virginia and grabbed numerous Hatfield supporters. One of them was Tom Chambers, who had tried to light the roof of Ranel McCoy's house on fire during the New Year's raid. But as hard as Bad Frank tried, he couldn't catch. devil ants. His relentless rating did lead to an unexpected surrender though. Devil

Lance's older brother, Valentine Wall Hatfield, turned himself into bad Frank Phillips. Wall had been indicted as one of 20 men who were responsible for the execution of the three McCoys. He'd been at the Log Schoolhouse while the young men were held hostage, but he had not participated in the actual killings. He was a justice of the peace, and he'd been part of the the legal system for nearly two decades. He thought he'd receive favorable treatment if he surrendered to the law instead of hiding like a fugitive. But more important than that, he no longer wanted to be associated with his younger brother. Devil Lance's family had crossed the line with the New Year's raid. Wall Hatfield sent word to Perry Klein and Frank Phillips that he was willing to come in

if he could be arrested right before his trial so he wouldn't have to languish in jail. Perry and Frank basically said no. Wall was arrested at his house and taken to the Pikeville jail like all the others who'd been caught by bad Frank. The core group around Devil Ants was shrinking. And it's easy to think that every Hatfield and every McCoy was involved in the feud. But that wasn't the case. Devil Anz had two younger brothers who had absolutely nothing to do with it. But of the others, he was down to just one who was still with him.

His older brother Wall was in jail, and his younger brother Ellison was dead. So was his uncle Jim Vance. Devil Anz needed to protect the rest of his clan from the raids of Bad Frank Phillips. He went to the Logan County government for help. The county leaders were not eager to help Devil Ants, but they also hated the raids by Bad Frank. They were furious that their county had been repeatedly invaded. They instructed a constable to form a posse to patrol. the West Virginia side of the Tug River. The posse was supposed to stop the raids,

and it had a murder warrant for Bad Frank Phillips for the killing of Jim Vance. So with Bad Frank launching raids from Kentucky and a posse guarding West Virginia, a showdown was inevitable. It happened just 10 days after the murder of Jim Vance. Next time on infamous America, the McCoys of Kentucky fight the Hatfields of West Virginia in the Battle of Grapevine Creek. It's all been building to this. It's the last major conflict of the feud, but it's not the end of the story.

There are prison sentences and a hanging and an unprecedented legal battle that goes all the way to the Supreme Court. That's next week on the Hatfields and McCoys. And members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials.

Sign up now through the link in our show notes or on our website, Black Barrel Media. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. This season was researched and written by Jen Labyrinths, script editing by Christopher Marcaicus, audio editing and sound designed by Dave Harrison, original music by Rob Valier. I'm your co-writer, host, and producer, Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com or on our social media channel. We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and B-Barrel Media on Twitter. And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube.

Just search for Infamous America Podcast. This show is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Please visit airwavemedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin's World, Once Upon a Crime, and many more. Thanks for listening.