Infamous America - HATFIELDS & MCCOYS Ep. 5 | “The Final Battle”

Episode Date: October 6, 2021

Weeks of firefights and arrests lead to the Battle of Grapevine. A party of McCoy supporters led by “Bad” Frank Phillips clashes with a party of Hatfield supporters. The consequences push the states of Kentucky and West Virginia to the Supreme Court. The last fight of the feud happens in a courtroom, but it claims one more life. 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

It had been 40 years since Pike County, Kentucky hanged a man. A new gallows was built. Timber was harvested from the nearby woods to construct the scaffold. Thirteen steps led up to the platform. An arm held the rope over the trap door. An offense was built around the site. A law had been passed 10 years ago that banned public executions. It was probably one of those laws that looked good on paper, but was difficult to enforce.

The gallows was built right out in the open. The fence couldn't stop people from watching. It only stopped them from getting too close. For days leading up to the execution, people from all over the Tug Valley region streamed into the town of Pikeville. On the day of the hanging, they gathered on the surrounding hillsides to watch the spectacle. The sheriff of Pikeville was understandably nervous.

With all these new people in town, it was a lot to handle. and there were rumors that a posse would ride out of the hills and rescue the condemned man. And then there was bad Frank Phillips. He was celebrating the occasion, which he considered an achievement. He was drunk, and he staggered up and down the streets of Pikeville with a pistol in each hand. He shouted that he had taken care of the Hatfields, and he would now run Pikeville. That didn't happen, and neither did a rescue attempt. On Tuesday, February 18, 1890, 25-year-old Cotton Top Ellison Mounce became the first, last, and only participant of the feud to receive capital punishment.

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 five, The Final Battle. Almost exactly two years before the execution, the Hatfield-McCoy feud hit its peak. On the night of January 1st, 1888, a Hatfield posse had attacked Rannell McCoy's farm. Rannell's son Calvin and his daughter Alifair were killed, and his wife Sally was badly injured. In response, Bad Frank Phillips led raids into West Virginia to capture or kill Hatfields. He did both.

He rounded up several prisoners, but he also killed Jim Vance. The murder led to the last major armed conflict between the families, the Battle of Grapevine Creek. The leaders of Logan County, West Virginia took action to stop Bad Frank's raids. They appointed a local constable and about 13 men to patrol the eastern shore of the Tug River. The defenders were supposed to stop any raiding party before it crossed into Logan County, and they had an arrest warrant for Frank Phillips for the murder of Jim Vance. On January 19, 1888, bad Frank Phillips led a posse of McCoy loyalists on another raid. One of the ironies up to this point was that very few McCoys actually took part in these raids.

Frank's possees were mostly made up of distant relatives or supporters, or worse, bounty hunters. But on this day, he did have two McCoys with him. They were the sons of the long ago murdered Harmon McCoy. Their brother Jeff had recently been killed by Cap Hatfield and Tom Wallace, and they wanted revenge. Frank's posse splashed across the river and headed for Hatfield lands. As the men came around a bend, they saw the Logan County Patrol that was guarding West Virginia territory. The two sides opened fire. Some men dove for cover behind rocks and trees.

Others stayed on horseback as they fired furiously at each other. One of the two McCoys was shot in the shoulder. Then a deputy with the Logan County defenders was shot in the leg. That young man, Bill Dempsey, was a new recruit. He had just joined the patrol that morning, and now he was in a bad spot. He crawled behind a fence for cover. In the cold-blooded version of what happened next, bad Frank Phillips found the young deputy behind the fence.

According to the story, Bad Frank walked up to Bill and put a gun to his head. Bill pleaded that he was not a member of the Hatfield gang. He was only acting as a deputy. But Bad Frank Phillips didn't care. He pulled the trigger and killed Bill Dempsey. The constable who commanded the patrol disputed that version. He said Bill was shot three times by rifles from long range. However Bill was killed, Bad Frank's population.

Posse felt victorious. The West Virginia Patrol fled in retreat, and one of its men had died. The Pikesville Posse had a couple injuries, but no fatalities, and it was still on the field of battle. The men of the Posse didn't make any arrests, but the town of Pikeville called them heroes. The Battle of Grapevine ended up being the last big armed conflict between the Hatfields and the McCoys. But it looked like it might spiral into a major conflict between the states of Kentucky and West Virginia. After the fight, both sides ran to their governors. The governors assumed the battle would lead to more violence. For more than 20 years, that's exactly what had happened after such a fight. There was no reason to believe it wouldn't now, and the governors wanted to

avoid it. The governor of Kentucky heard horror stories about a massacre at the farm of Ranel McCoy. Rannell's family had been decimated by the feud. He and his wife, Sally had lost five children to the violence. A sixth, Rosanna, was estranged from her father. And Sally McCoy was a victim herself. The governor heard that Sally had sustained permanent injuries during the massacre. And lastly, he heard that all of this was the work of the Hatfield clan from West Virginia. It was led by a man known as Devil Ants Hatfield.

Devil Ants had harassed Kentucky citizens for nearly 30 years, stretching back to the Civil War. The governor of West Virginia heard similar but opposite stories. He heard that his people, the Hatfields of Logan County, were the victims of illegal raids by a lawless cutthroat named bad Frank Phillips. The governor heard Frank Phillips murder Jim Vance and deputy Bill Dempsey in just the last three weeks. And Frank Phillips was connected to a conniving lawyer over in Pikeville, Kentucky named Perry Klein. Klein was the man who was poisoning the ear of the Kentucky governor. Both governors put their state militias on standby while they waited to see what hell would break loose next.

But the Hatfields were immediately hit with a one-two punch of business and family problems that stalled any more violence. The political and business dynamics in Logan County had been changing for nearly 10 years, and they crashed down on devil ants less than 10 days after the Battle of Grapevine. Ants had numerous cases involving land deals working their way through the courts.

The courts used to rubber stamp these deals, but not anymore. They were now bowing to rich investors from outside the Tug Valley. And suddenly, all those cases finished at the same time, and ants lost them all. He now owed a huge sum of money, and it was due immediately.

He was forced to liquidate his assets and sell all his land. This moment almost surely made Perry Klein smile. He probably viewed it as poetic justice to some extent. Devil Ants owned the land that was the site of the Battle of Grapevine Creek. But it was land that he bought or took from Perry Klein. And now, more than 20 years later, Devil Anz lost the land. He sold it to a group of rich men from Philadelphia.

He bought 400 acres of land higher up in the hills, about 20 miles from his lifelong home in the Tug Valley. And while that was happening, his eldest son, Jonsie, was losing his wife to the man who had become a terror to the Hatfields. The Hatfields probably viewed it as the ultimate betrayal. But like everything, it wasn't that simple. Nancy McCoy left her husband, Jonsie Hatfield, after just a few years of marriage. They had two children, and she took the kids to her mother's home. Her list of grievances against the Hatfields was long. Jonsie wouldn't stay faithful.

Two years ago, her brother Jeff had been killed by Cap Hatfield and Tom Wallace. Right before that, her sister Mary had been attacked by Cap. And at the top of the list was the murder of her father, Harmon McCoy. It happened a few months before she was born, so she never met him. But legend said he was killed by a Hatfield. So it shouldn't have been a surprise to the Hatfields that Nancy McCoy left Jonsie Hatfield. The betrayal was that she took up with Bad Frank Phillips. On the McCoy side of the feud, Bad Frank was the hero of the Battle of Grapevine.

He also had plenty of swagger and attitude, and Nancy liked that. Bad Frank did whatever he wanted, regardless of the law, and Nancy liked that too. But as all this was happening, more sad news struck the McCoy clan. Rannell and Sally McCoy lost another child. It wasn't due to violence, but it was still a result of the feud. Rosanna McCoy had just kind of drifted away. Her father had essentially disowned her after she began a relationship with Jonsie Hatfield. When the relationship fell apart, he refused to speak to her.

She said he had hate in his eyes when he looked at her. The McCoy tradition said she had a child with Jonsie, but the baby died at eight months old. Three of her brothers had been executed by the Hatfields. Another brother and a sister had been killed in the New Year's raid. Her mother had been badly injured in the same raid and was now a shell of her former self. Rosanna had grown more and more depressed as the years passed.

Around the same time her cousin Nan, was taking up with Bad Frank Phillips, Rosanna died. She was 29 years old and was buried in the Dills Cemetery, named for Colonel John Dills. Also around this time, Bad Frank found himself pushed to the center of the court battle that loomed over the feud. And while the violence might have simmered down,

the legal fire glowed bright and hot. The governor of Kentucky was furious that the governor of West Virginia was still ignored, ignoring legal extradition paperwork. The Hatfields should have been delivered to Kentucky long before now. In the eyes of the governor, they were murderers who were allowed to live free in West Virginia. The governor of West Virginia had his doubts about the Hatfields,

but he also believed that the governor of Kentucky was a pawn of Perry Klein. And now the governor of West Virginia raised the bet. He sent extradition orders to Kentucky for Frank Phillips. West Virginia wanted bad Frank for the murders of Jim Vance and Deputy Bill Dempsey. And then the governor of West Virginia went one step further. He filed a writ of habeas corpus that stated that the Hatfields and their supporters who now sat in jail in Pikeville had been arrested illegally by Frank Phillips. The men were not given their due process rights under the law,

and they should be returned to West Virginia immediately. In Pikeville, Perry Klein had waited for. for two years for movement on the extradition orders. Now things were finally starting to happen, and they set up a showdown in a Louisville courtroom. In another strange twist in the feud saga, Perry Klein, steadfast enemy of the Hatfields, became the lawyer for Wall Hatfield. For reasons that are not entirely clear, Perry defended Devil Anse's older brother and three of the man's sons-in-law. Yet at the same time, Perry Klein wanted to make a show. show of transporting all the Hatfield prisoners from Pikeville to Louisville.

He escorted the nine prisoners by steamboat and then by train. He planted stories in the newspapers to hype up the arrival of these terrifying barbarians from the mountains. He repeatedly predicted that devil ants would ride into Louisville with a posse full of marauders and rescue his older brother by force. But of course, none of that happened. A crowd of people met the train at the Louisville station. They wanted to see these rowdy mountaineers for themselves, and they were disappointed by the site. They'd hoped to see the wild savages they'd read about in the papers, but these were just regular men who looked like everyone else. The prisoners were tidy and well-kept. They wore white shirts, and they walked through

the crowd with an air of indifference. They didn't attack anyone. They didn't try to make a run for it, and they weren't rescued by their outlaw family members. The legal proceedings lasted for 30 days. The lawyers argued every little detail of the extradition battle that had played out for two years between Kentucky and West Virginia. The governor of West Virginia was on hand to support his team. He sat behind the lawyers with stacks of books and documents, and he was animated when he consulted with the attorneys.

West Virginia argued that Frank Phillips was acting as a. an agent for Kentucky, and he invaded West Virginia and grabbed its citizens without due process. And Frank's raids happened while the official extradition process was still in motion, which made them illegal. Kentucky countered by saying that Frank had acted as a private citizen. The state had nothing to do with his raids. It didn't care how the prisoners got to Pikeville, but once they were there, they were arrested for crimes in Kentucky. Therefore, they should stay in Kentucky. and be tried for those crimes in Kentucky. And lastly, Kentucky said this whole thing

wasn't even a matter for a district court. If it was a battle between the states, it could only be settled by the Supreme Court. Kentucky won the argument about jurisdiction, and the prisoners stayed in Pikeville. It was also right about the only venue that could settle this fight. So the Hatfield-McCoy feud

went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. The legal system moved much faster in those days. In April 1888, just one month after the decision in the Louisville courtroom, the lawyers presented their cases to the Supreme Court. The court seemed to agree with both sides, but it ultimately ruled in favor of one. It agreed with West Virginia that the prisoners were taken out of the state without the use of legal warrants or legal process. But it agreed with Kentucky that once the prisoners were in Pikeville,

They could be legally arrested for crimes committed in Kentucky. The final decision was seven to two in favor of Kentucky. Wall Hatfield and the eight other prisoners would stay in Kentucky and go to trial in that state. And the decision had ramifications beyond the fates of those nine men. It meant it was open season on Hatfields and McCoys for any bounty hunter who wanted to try to catch them. If the Supreme Court didn't care how a prisoner got from one state to a number, other, then bounty hunters could use any means at their disposal to collect their rewards. West Virginia put bounties on the heads of Frank Phillips and nearly 30 others for the murders

of Jim Vance and Bill Dempsey. Kentucky's still on bounties on the heads of the top members of the Hatfield family. Detectives from the Pinkerton Agency and several others flooded into the Tug Valley to track down members of either side. They didn't care which. For all the differences between the Hatfields and the McCoys, they could agree on one thing. They hated detectives. So did everyone else in the Valley. They viewed detectives as greedy criminals with badges that were bought and paid for by powerful outsiders. One newspaper editor joked about a solution to the detective problem. He said the whole feud would end if bounties were put on the detectives instead of the feudists. The Hatfields and McCoys would unite and clear out the detectives in two

weeks. His suggestion was probably noted with a laugh, but it was not accepted. After the Supreme Court decision in the spring of 1888, the summer of 1888 was a long one for both sides. With detectives and bounty hunters prowling the woods, the Hatfields and McCoys fell back on the old tradition of laying out. They moved out of their homes and hid in shelters deeper in the woods and farther up the hillsides. Devil Lance already had a natural advantage in that department. When he had been forced to sell his land, he moved up the mountain to a narrow valley with ridges on both sides.

It was hard to reach, and he turned his home into a compound. He built a fortress tower in a strategic position away from his house. It was made with thick logs that could stop bullets and had just one massive door. It had gun ports in the walls that looked in all directions. It was stocked with food and water, and it would become the family sanctuary if they were under siege. Devil Lance and his heavily armed men walked regular patrols to guard the location.

As a result, the detectives never got close to the core group. But they did catch three other Hatfield supporters, two of whom were considered prime targets. The smallest fish was Charles Gillespie. He was caught in Virginia. A bigger prize was Alex Messer. He was considered a very dangerous man who had participated in the executions of the McCoy brothers.

He was thought to be number four in the hierarchy of the Hatfield group behind Devil Ants, Jonsie, and Cap Hatfield. And the biggest one turned out to be Cotton Top Ellison Mounce. Two detectives had tracked Cotton Top for days and then ambushed him near a creek. He put up a fight and fired several shots at the men. He hit one of them in the leg, but they eventually won the fight and slammed the handcuffs on him. Then, after long months of living like fugitives, the Hatfields turned the tables on the

detectives. They received peace warrants against the detectives. These were like restraining orders, not criminal arrest warrants. But the warrants allowed the warrants. the Hatfields to scoop up the detectives and take them to jail in Logan County. And then finally, after about a year of back-and-forth man-hunts, the pursuits stopped. It was time for the legal battle to start back up again. It was the final battle of the feud, and it claimed one more life. In the hottest part of the summer of 1889, people crammed into the Pike County Courthouse for the trial. It had been seven long years since three sons of Ranel McCoy had been executed by Devil Ants and a contingent of Hatfields.

Now, eight men were on trial for those murders, and two others were on trial for the killings from the New Year's raid. None of the accused were Devil Ants or his sons. The first up was Devil Ants's older brother, Wall Hatfield, and things did not go as he'd planned. Wall had been a justice of the peace in West Virginia for many years. As he grew more and more uneasy with his younger brother's actions, he put distance between himself and devil ants. When things got really crazy during the raids of Frank Phillips,

Wall turned himself in. He thought he would receive leniency because of his years of service to the law. And recently, he'd taken another step that he thought would help his case. He hired Perry Klein as his lawyer. In fact, Wall and his three sons-in-law all hired Perry Klein. They thought it would show they were not like the other Hatfields. For Perry Klein's part, the deal was sweet. If his four defendants didn't have the money to pay him,

they agreed to sign over some of their land. And much of that land was the land that had been taken from him by Devil Ants all those years ago. Wall Hatfield admitted that he'd been at the old schoolhouse when the three McCoy, were held hostage. But he had not participated in the execution. In fact, he had tried to get them released. Numerous witnesses supported his claims, but it didn't matter to the Pike County jury. They found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison. The jury did the same thing to eight more defendants. Nine of the ten were given life sentences. That left only Cotton Top Ellison mounts. The 25-year-old young man had mental challenges. He was called Cotton Top because his hair

was so blonde that it was almost white. He was the illegitimate son of Ance's younger brother Ellison, the man who had been murdered by the three McCoys on Election Day seven years ago. Cotton Top had no money for a lawyer. He'd confessed to the shooting and killing of Alifair McCoy during the New Year's raid, but his confession was questionable. There was no way to to know for sure that he'd fired the fatal shot. If he had, he might have been pressured into it by Jonsie and Cap Hatfield. And either way, he might have been pressured into giving the confession by the same two men. There was also a rumor that they'd bribed him with $500. And he'd been told that if he confessed, the law would go easier on him. And if he didn't, there were always

rumors that Devil Lance would ride into town with a posse and storm the jail and break him out. In court, Sally McCoy testified about the horrors of the New Year's raid. But she also said something that seemed to help Cotton Top's case. She thought Cap Hatfield killed her daughter. She vividly remembered Alifair saying the words, Cap Hatfield, before the fatal shot was fired. But there would be no mercy for Cotton Top. The men of the jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death.

They were probably making an example out of him. Perry Klein reportedly said later, well, someone had to hang. A few months later, in February 1890, a gallows was built outside Pikeville. People streamed in from everywhere to watch the hanging even though public executions were against the law. Cotton Top Ellison mounts climbed the 13 steps to the new wood platform.

He was given the chance to say his final words. He said he was ready to die, and he hoped his friends would meet him in heaven. The officials looped the noose around his neck and dropped a black hood over his head. He reportedly made one final statement. The Hatfields made me do it. Then the officials sprung the trap door

and Ellison Mounts was hanged by the neck until dead. He was the first man hanged in Pike County in 40 years, and he was the only man hanged during the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. The execution essentially ended the feud. Nobody had the stomach for it anymore, or the money to continue fighting. It had been 25 years, one month, and 11 days since the murder of Harmon McCoy. Twelve people died in the feud, and other types of damages were impossible to measure.

The direct violence subsided, but the losses still mounted on both sides. Devil Lance's older brother Wall Hatfield was sentenced to life in prison. He died just six months later. His lawyer, Perry Klein, didn't outlive him by much. After a lifetime of fighting the Hatfields, Perry Klein died two years after the trials. He was 42 years old. That same year, the son of Harmon McCoy who had been injured during the Battle of Grapevine, was killed in an argument with his cousin.

Six years later, in 1898, bad Frank Phillips was shot in the leg by his friend and former deputy. Doctors amputated the leg, but Gangrene set in and he died two weeks later. His wife, Nancy McCoy, the former wife of Jonsie Hatfield, died three years later from tuberculosis. Jonsie avoided capture for 10 years. He finally got caught in 1898. same year Bad Frank died. He was put on trial for his role in the New Year's raid and sentenced to life in prison, but he only served six years. According to some, he saved the life of the prison warden when the warden was attacked by another inmate. For that, he received a pardon.

He passed away in 1922 at 60 years old. His younger brother, Kapp, experienced something of a reformation. In 1891, the year, Year after Cotton Top was hanged, Cap sent a letter to a local paper that said the families had agreed to a general amnesty. He said he had no more will to fight. He wanted peace. He still had a few aggressive encounters over the years, but for the most part, he became a respected member of society. He learned to read and write. He studied law, and he served several terms as a deputy sheriff in Logan County.

He died in 1930 at 66 years old. It's probably fair to say that no one suffered more than Rannell and Sally McCoy. Sally was permanently scarred by the New Year's raid. She passed away sometime in the 1890s. Randolph McCoy, often called Randall or Old Rannell, was alone for the last 15 years of his life. He operated a ferry toward the end. Perry Klein helped him secure.

the commission. He suffered injuries in an accidental fire and passed away in 1914 at the age of 88. His old enemy Devil Lance outlived him by seven years. William Anderson Hatfield, known to everyone as Devil Lance, kept on living his life after the events that we call the feud ended. He stayed up in his mountain fortress and kept logging and hunting bears and making whiskey. All that combined with the mineral rights from his lands, led to a prosperous retirement. Late in life, he rekindled a friendship with one of his old comrades

from the Logan County Wildcats. The man was one of the oldest and most respected preachers in Logan County, and Devil Ants decided to get right with God. He was baptized at age 73. In January of 1921, he caught pneumonia and passed away at the age of 81. His funeral was one of the largest in the history of Logan County.

A few years later, the Hatfield family commissioned a life-sized statue made of Italian marble. It cost $3,000 at the time. That would be roughly $45,000 today. It is, by far, the largest monument in the Hatfield Family Cemetery. Next time on Infamous America, the Hatfield-McCoy feud is the most well-known feud in Appalachian. But it certainly wasn't the only one. You'll hear the stories of some of the other deadly family feuds in eastern Kentucky. That's next week on the season finale of the Hatfields and McCoys on infamous America.

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 design 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 channels. 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.