Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 555: The Hatfield and McCoy Feud Part I - Hog Justice

Episode Date: December 2, 2023

This week the boys venture deep into Appalachian History - beginning the story of one of the most notoriously famous feuds in American folklore, the contentious tale of The Hatfields and The McCoys.

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Mmm! Existing heel jack and last hot gas on the left! I'm ready to get out now and eat some babies! Get out of the way, Hillary Clinton! There's no place to escape to! This is the last talk! On the left. Yes! Yes!

What a good place. That's when the cannonball was started. What was that? Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! Yes! Yes! Yes!

Yes! Yes, I'm out. Yes, yes! Come on, I'll use you down here. Yes, yes, yes! I'm trying to dial it in. Dial it in. Yeah, make it where it is.

Don't. The problem is you're sober. Yes. I thought about it. I thought about it this morning. You thought about that getting like just getting what like three beers in. Well, I take a look that route over there. I said, go, go.

We ain't talking. We singing. That's what I heard. He was talking, no, that again, more scum. Of course, God. I told him we had to have a whole conversation about you. Can't phone the forest cup, you can't phone the Ross Perot. That was Ross Perot meets for a scum.

That's close though, because if you hear some of these guys, right, well, you get deep into Appalachia. It gets cryptic and they're saying something. You don't know what they're saying. And they don't know what they're saying and you know what they're saying you ever They're like, go down and get yourself a dope. It's half a motion Dope is a soda yeah, really yeah, but you ain't put it in with you get that kitty get a kitty now You don't adjust the voice at all I love you. You don't adjust the voice at all.

What are you doing? It's just, I'm going. I think it comes more down like this. There we go. All right. There's an apple latch in the hole. The hole,

an apple latch. Yeah. There we go. You think you get that flim in there? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't need a filter for the Los Angeles guys. You're welcome to last podcast on the left ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks here with Henry's a browse guy. I'm down the river. It was a browse. People I lost it already. It's fine.

It's fine. We have two hours to get it. Yeah, we do. And of course, Ed Larson. See? Yeah. Yeah. What a hog talk today. I'm excited. Oh man so much hog talk seriously talk about and like

Never if pigs been more important to your crime Except for Robert picked them absolutely. I thank you for correcting me But a lot of people say oh that have field of McCoy you isn't that just a fight over a pig And we're gonna tell you no Oh, the hat field of McCoy, you isn't that just a fight over a pig. And we're going to tell you, no, it's a fight over several pigs. That's right. And some of them were ladies in the family. They have a glandulation.

Taking place in the tug valley along a small river that forms the border between Kentucky and West Virginia, the feud between the Hatfield and McCoy Clans has been a part of the American identity ever since the two families began killing each other in the late 19th century. Yeah, man, gangster rap. Fuck yeah, man, I want to tug value this morning, bro. That's a must for me.

Now, this feud was by no means the longest nor the bloodiest scene in Appalachia during this time period. And by the way nor the bloodiest scene in Appalachia during this time period. And by the way, Appalachia and Appalachia are both accepted pronunciations. Usually if you're more northern, you'll say Appalachia, if you're more of Southern, you'll say Appalachia.

Well, they'll say if you're wrong, you're saying Appalachia. But if we're getting... I'm saying Appalachia. I wanna say upfront, before we get in there, obviously I'm struggling with an accent, but that's just because my lack of training. But for you guys, I know we got some Appalachians out there that listen to this show, right?

And I know they're going to get immediately hopped mad about many things we're going to get wrong and say wrongs about their town. We're going to say their town's wrong. Yeah, certain things, but just know we know your separate and valid. You know, another term is in Dem Hills. In Dem Hills.

In Dem Hills. Yeah, that works as well. So I got going. I mean, these are people who like use their feet as musical instruments. Hell yeah, clogging. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they were the first musical instruments. They were the first deadly weapon.

Mm-hmm. Feeder, great. But yeah, it was not the longest, nor the bloodiest few that was in Appalachia at the time Why don't we cover those ones though because the Hatfield McCoy's has seriously has a built-in narrative structure It's a great it really does and has a great fucking story And I think that's a partially the reason why the Hatfield and McCoy's have been Absolutely riddled throughout all of media ever since it began.

I think they said that in the silent era, there was something like 92 films made like adjacent to the Hatfields and McCoy's. Yeah. I mean, films were far shorter back then, you know, it's like, you know, eight minutes. But yeah, there was a huge like outburst of, you know, there was a kind of a trend of like hillbilly films. Yeah. But yeah, even though wasn't the bloodiest nor the longest, it still resulted in somewhere between 12 and 24 deaths, depending on the source. How do they not know? They don't know a lot of shit. We'll get to that here in a second. These deaths

often occurred in gangland style executions, home invasions and brutal hand-to-hand fights that turned murderous. Hey, that's my mother, you're strangling. Now, is it a home invasion if there's no doors? Hey, that's a shack invasion. That's actually, it's a really important to remember that, especially when you're dealing with the M.D.M. hills police. But to that point, it's important to know that neither the hatfields nor the McCoy's, neither of them were a bunch of barefoot bib overall wearing simpleton shaken.

They're fisted each other across the creek as they're often portrayed. Some of them were. Some of them were. Yeah. I mean, did they make their own moonshine? Yes. Yes. Did they have names like Bad Jim Vance, Cotton Top Mounds and Squirrel Hunt and Sam? Absolute.

As they should. But some were also community leaders with great economic power, at least locally. And most of them live lives not too dissimilar from any other American frontiersmen at the time. Yeah, they just were truly kind of extra isolated. They were. Absolutely extra isolated. Really, the Hatfield, McCoy feud occurred just before Appalachia turned into a pit of

poverty and despair. And it was in fact the industrialization of the area that helped fuel the violence. I can't wait to do our coal belt tour next year. We're going to Monca, Lunka. We already did Norfolk and it was fine. No, the show was good. No, that was the remember that was the show where there was that massive fucking orchestra pit between us and the audience. Then you 30 night away. There was no heat on and it was like 35 degrees. That's very cold.

Nor would it kind of be bigger crowd than Charlottesville. It did, but Norfolk also had that record store that was full of bootleg records. That was yeah. That was absolutely worse. I mean, that guy's such a fucking crooks. See, I went to a great cemetery. The Hollywood cemetery.

I should have gone to the cemetery. He was good. But put differently. I'm sorry. No, I can't wait. I hope we go again. Oh, yeah, of course. Go, go, go. Put differently. This is sorry. No, I can't wait. I hope we go again. Yeah, of course. Put differently.

This is when West Virginia began its transformation into coal country with all the misery that followed. And as we'll see, the feud between the Hatfields and McCoys is partly responsible for that. It's weird. I guess that was a week. We'll get into it like way deep later. Yes, like all of you. I am certain, except those,

because this is a, we're in Marcus's house right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I know. He loves the shit. He loves the shit too, by the way. Yeah, I do too. I did too. You got, I have history aids. He gave it to me.

And I do like it. As always, Adam, we've talked about history for many years. Absolutely, but you, most of us, but know anything about this fucking story, we really know very little. Like I only know what is the name. Again, I know about a much straw-hatted, long-bearded versions of this story in various cartoons. Don't eat tunes. Yeah, but I don't really, I didn't fully understand that this kind of what was happening right underneath and kind of because of this

entire bullshit. It kind of hollowed out that entire part of the country literally. Mm hmm. But while the hat fields and the McCoy's weren't quite the stereotypical hillbillies that they're often portrayed as, this feud really was killing for kill and say. It was pure gang warfare. But without any of the motivations behind gang warfare, like territory or resources, money, their money, this is just straight up murder.

Sets nobody benefits. Wow. Now, as far as sources go today, well, actually, some do benefit, but we'll get into that later. Okay. Now, as far as sources go today, we got two books. The first is Blood feud by Lisa author, which provides a succinct retelling of what can be a highly complicated story. The other is the feud by Dean King, which gives more of the bloody details.

Oh, thank God. The books, however, contradict each other constantly, which is, in fact, the very nature of the story. No one involved in the feud left any written accounts because most of them were illiterate. And the newspapers at the time used a healthy amount of yellow journalism to juice the facts are straight up lie for a better story. I tell you what, you don't even try to show me a pencil because I'm a uzi to his gum and steal. Help!

I'm dying of various cancers. Their version of Fox News was made just chased around a fox to the next town. You tell me what's going on. Oh, shit, I showed up in hot field. What's happening? My God. Oh, it's cloudy. It's mostly cloudy. It's mostly cloudy.

Additionally, most of the oral histories come from Hatfield and McCoy descendants, who of course have their own official juiced up versions that paint the other side as the aggressors, while they themselves are rugged individualistic American heroes fighting against a force of pure evil. Depends on which will you feed? Depends on who I am every day. Natalie's trying to pull it a little bit of this because her family is from some of that area, the far, far western area of Pennsylvania that goes into West Virginia. And she did the, you know, I might have some McCoy blood in me. And

it was like, that is what everybody says. They all say that they have the blood of the, if you're from that area, they're like, yep, my great, grandpeppy. He was the head field number nine. I don't know. I know. It's the Southern version of the Mayflower. Sure. Yeah. But somewhere in between the Hatfield story and the McCoy story lies the truth. So we're going to do our best to tell the fairest story we can glean from what the world thinks they know about the Hatfields and the McCoys. Now, as far as where all this happened, the Hatfield and McCoy feud occurred on the border between West Virginia and Kentucky

on a fork of the Big Sandy River called Tug Valley. Yeah, man. People from West Virginia killing people from Kentucky. What is it by birthday? Yeah. Hey, man. Eddie, have you ever been to Yank Gulch? Horrible place. No, it was called tug valley supposedly because like some of the first guys there, like it's so inhospitable, they had to eat their own shoes. No, is it bad place to eat their, they had to eat their tugs on their boots. Because if you boil the leather, that's where the expression comes from, right? What?

Well, if this is true, I'll eat my own shoe. I think that just comes from Saddam Hussein. Yeah. I think he said, is it Werner Herzog? I always preferred eat my own hat. Yeah. Because I'll eat my hat. Yeah.

It could be a Texas thing. Well, this was a difficult, densely forested, highly undesirable place to live when whites first began settling there for farming purposes. Although there were, of course, plenty of native tribes already there who've been doing just fine with the land for centuries. But they didn't want them there. So they believe they called it like the bloody land or the cursed land. They try to do the thing where they're like, you don't want to go over there.

There's a lot of fucking crazy ghosts over there. And you know, just kind of, you kind of believe them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was someone put it was like when someone like walks outside and shoot the fires a gun of the air every, like every night, just so gentrification doesn't happen. But as far as the types of people who settled the area went, you had a crew pretty similar to what you had out west years later, yet former indenturedured servants, escaped enslaved people, and of course criminals galore. But because it was such an unforgiving land, the people who lived there were tough and

extraordinarily independent due to the fact that the terrain itself prevented any sort of infrastructure from forming until the dawn of the industrial age. We're about to find out what tough and extraordinarily and the independent people are going to be emailing us at the end of the series. accidental death was common crop failure. So it occurred constantly storms battered cabins and settlers were under constant attacks from natives whose land they'd invaded in addition to bandits who took advantage of an ungovernable land.

That's also why we don't know a lot about it is because record keeping was spotty to surgery. So yeah, they were being actively murdered by their house. In fact, before the Civil War, the Tug Valley had no roads or rails. It had very few schools or churches. It basically ignored calendars. And when the transcontinental telegraph system began to crawl across the country in the 1860s, they bypassed this area of the country completely because the telegraph company figured they had nothing to say.

I got plenty to say. All right, give me that telegraph machine. Oh, you're about to come back here again. Go get. Go get. Stop. Go get. Oh, you're about to come back here get go get go get stop That could you tell me how much money this is But since there was no law to speak of a man's reputation for violence was the only thing that kept neighbors and bandits in check. That meant that if someone attacked you in yours, it was in your best

interest to come back hard with such brutality that word would spread about how violent you were willing to be. This partly explains why so many people in this story have the bad modifier attached to their name, like Bad Jim Bans or Bad Frank Phillips. Sure, you, my name is Bad Frank Phillips because I'm bad at being Frank Phillips. It is not going well for me. Do not call me Paul. Hello, my name is Sal. I'm the bad. I'm the bad. Hello, my name is Sal. I'm the bad, I'm the bad, Sal. But since nobody really moved to the valley to work for someone else, and since none of

the settlers could afford to enslave other people, families were their own labor force, and were therefore massive. Probably also, it's one of the only fun things they got to do, which is fucking incominent side. Oh, it really is. No, dear, in the tug valley, sex was very common like people. I'm gonna laugh. I better be able to do it in a while.

I'm gonna laugh. Yeah. Well, I mean, people fucked and sucked constantly. Babies out of, born out of wedlock were very common. And if where babies weren't happening was on jerk them out. I'm none of these are written down. This is great. As far as the main players in the Hatfield and McCoy families went, Randall McCoy had 16 children while Anderson Hatfield

had 13. And here my friends is where we're going to get into the prime movers behind the Hatfield and McCoy Feud, starting with Anderson devil ants Hatfield and McCoy feud starting with Anderson devil ants Hatfield. My favorite portrayal of him so far, I went and I watched as much as I could have Hatfield and McCoy like new media. It's all fucking awful. Yeah. You're talking about the TV movie from like 1978. I said to you, yeah.

Yeah. Jack Palants as devil ants is amazing. We were so say important. A lot of times back to, you know, these days, everybody's going to play an apple action. They go move to West Virginia. Like Daniel Day Lewis is there, you know, he's whittling, hanging out with everybody, you know, like, I kind of shit. Jack Palin's obviously, I can't give a fucking shit.

And he is just Jack Palin's, yeah, with a fake beard off. It's so funny. I watched a little bit of it. You said that it's amazing. I can't wait to finish it. But he like every time he acts like he's like he's having a heart attack while he gives his life. He's so scared.

I tell you what now. That's my pick now. That's my pick now. A man has to defend his home. He's intense. Now, no one's exactly sure where devil ants Hatfield got his nickname, but as is common with this tale, multiple explanations exist. One was that when Devil Ants was a child, he got into a bare-handed fight with a cougar and survived, which caused his mother to say that even the devil wouldn't

scare her son. Ants is of course a contraction of the name Anderson, which took me fucking days to figure out. Never understood that. did not know that that was possible Hansen like you know you did see us ants Anderson and some ants they don't speak right I mean no I mean admittedly you know the Texas accent is wildly different from this one, but it is you know their cousins yeah Yeah, yeah, far far putting a boat well another story yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yes. Benicio del Toro movie. Oh, no, it's not beneath the del Toro. Are you thinking of airborne? No, no airborne, the rollerblading movie and they have to go down the devil's backbone and Cincinnati. That's actually I did not know that Jack Black, Seth Green. No, it's boring. Yeah. Not airborne, though.

That's great. That's a great thing. Shadow water. Well, another explanation, which I think is most likely is that there were two Anderson Hatfields in Tug Valley. They were cousins. And since devilance was the more wily of the two, he got the nickname devil while the more mild-mannered Anderson got preacher ants who will play a huge part in the story in the hog trial to come.

Isn't that idea? Cause it was, they said that one was the, the, was it preacher ants like the guy that was like his good, the good guy. He's a good one. Yeah. But yeah, but he was the one that like kind of like consulted with devil ants during the feud. My wrong preacher ants was a part during the feud. My wrong preacher.

Ants was a part of the feud definitely. Yes, but he was like the good guy. Yeah, he was the good one. Yeah, like how cops are good. But as far as devilance's ancestry in the region went, his great-grandfather, F from Hatfield, nicknamed F of all because all the tug fork hat fields descended from him. He'd moved to the tug fork in 1820 with his wife and 10 children. It's really weird. For some reason, I imagine like that he's like 20 feet tall, like 25 feet wide.

He's like full of hat fields. I like, like, oh, like a possum, but get a bunch of nipples and all the hat happy hanging on I'm like, that's my house. There's no infant mortality rate back then. It is a huge infant mortality rate. Yeah, they just get a 10. These women are, these women are pregnant from the time they're like 14 until they hit menopause.

And they're just still mad of them. Yeah, it's just oh yeah, they kick up the leg. The baby flies out. It's picking. It's in there. It's sticking, it's just, oh yeah, they kick up the leg. The baby flies out. It's picking. It's in there. It's digging for it's digging for. Yeah. Two weeks later, fucking big F is fucking again. Yeah. Yeah. Some of them are automatic. Those are the scary ones. It's amazing. Well, F from bagat Valentine, who bagat big F, devil, Loland's father, who was rumored to be seven feet tall and 300 pounds.

True to the nature of the area, men would travel from all corners of the tug valley to wrestle Big F to establish their reputation as a guy who could handle himself. That's real. That's a thing. If you're in tug valley, right? You got a wrestle fucking big F. Yeah, it's one thing to pin them, but it's another thing to fall in love. And that's when big F will. That was his downfall, won't it?

Devolence's mother, however, Nance Bants was a god damn. You know, it's just, just get used to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was a so called Woods cult child, cult that Woods cult child, that's C-O-L-T, which was the local term for a baby born out of wedlock, named after the instances when domestic mayors were impregnated by wild salience, a cult that is born in the woods. Yeah. So there's the first horse women. A bastard horse.

Yeah. It's a bastard horse, yes. Now concerning her origin story, before the vances moved to Tug Valley, a man named Lewis Horton had taken Nancy's mother Betsy to Baltimore, then brought her home pregnant and unmarried. Hey, man, have I ever heard that story at a Baltimore 95 times? I haven't heard it once.

Actually, that does sound like a pretty good euphemism for like knocking someone up and then leaving them is taking them to Baltimore. We love Baltimore. You know what, we love Baltimore. It's one of my favorite cities in the entire country, adore Baltimore. Yeah, take her to Baltimore.

Yeah. But after he got her pregnant, Lewis dropped Betsy on her father's front porch and said, quote, here's your heifer. You take care of her. Harsh. Yeah. That's gonna raise your hackles and retaliation.

Betsy's father murdered Lewis Horton. He either shot him or drowned him in the river. We don't really know which one is probably. Probably. Shoot him in the throw in the river. He ain't dead enough. He then escaped to what is now West Virginia and staked a claim in the tug fork valley. But in an incredibly stupid move, the elder vance later returned to the town where he'd murdered Lewis Horton, hoping that everyone had just forgotten that he'd killed a guy. That's an old school excuse.

Yeah. He don't see it a lot anymore. But it's fun to like, because that was also kind of back to the time where they might have, they might have long to be wait, you know, not that long. Not long enough. Yeah. He wasn't like, you know, I did my time, you know, honestly, what did I leave tug that?

You think you should get some stuff? They had not forgotten. And the elder vans was subsequently convicted of murder and hanged. Hatfield legend had it that on his way to the gallows, the elder vans stood on his coffin, sang a song of injustice. They're hanging me for no reason. You guys, there's a young, own answer. How long's this song? The song was incredibly long.

Any last words? Whaaat? Whaaat? After the song, he then talked for an hour and a half. Wow, say it first, let it louder a little bit worse. Yeah. He does another three hours set like his game, Chappelle. Well, supposedly Governor James Monroe arrived just after the hanging to pardon the elder

vans. You're pardoned. Like, I said, but all attempts to resuscitate Betsy's father failed. From the story, though, devil and supposedly learn the lesson that when the government gets involved in justice is likely to occur. Tell us about it, brother. Therefore, if a man, if the government didn't exist, you would be dead decades ago. I would be very funny captive amongst other strong men.

My goal would position myself within which I've already done. I would position myself in the center of a bunch of very strong men. Yeah, and be the moral. Of course, everyone needs morale. But because of this, devil ants came to believe that if a man needs justice, he's better off taking it upon himself to dole out whatever punishment he sees fit. Pig justice. And it's a hog justice, please. Please.

Fucking hogs, not pigs. Now, as far as devil ants' appearance went, he was not a handsome man. No. And with some time said to resemble a worried troll. Hey, I mean, I guess I am worried. It's actually kind of difficult out here. Yeah, this big, long, awful nose. He looked kind of like, he looked like a sick, rascutin.

That's how I would describe him. Yeah. Yeah. He did, however, have charisma. And he often used his high pitched nasal voice to tell tall tales and jokes, all of which was very endearing. Comedy helps.

This was in stark contrast to his rival and antagonist, Randall McCoy. Now, as opposed to devil ants, Randall McCoy had few stories that lived on, partly because he was an old cout that nobody liked and partly because he lost a lot of Children in the feud and there weren't as many people to pass down his stories. I tried to write they figure this out right This is at the very top of this this series. So we'll unpack it more But who's the good guys and who are the bad guys? No one's neither right? It's hard to tell

I mean it kind of in terms of, because Randall McCoy technically was like lazy and he didn't work hard where they say that was a stereotype about him. And then devilance was hard working, but he also sort of was like a bloodthirsty capitalist. Yeah, it's really hard to, there's really no good guy. I mean, I guess it depends on your point of view. But yeah, I mean, devilance is definitely the more likable one. Or is he just more entertaining? Likeable and entertaining are very different. Very true.

Both cold, blooded murderers. Some guys are still great. Look at Barack Obama. I wanna hang out with him. Oh, man, what a great kill count he has. Yes. He'd be fun. What we do know is that Randall was born in 1825 and he married his first cousin Sarah McCoy some years later

I should go back to the the family Wic Yeah, I like because she looks like me. It's like jerking off I guess I should have stayed on jerk Nope, that's why I move Nope, that's why I moved it down. Yeah. Tug Valley is when you jerk off into a woman's head. Just some people know back. I put the tug and tug Valley and you put the bucket and bucket.

Well, sometimes you skip some of the lower facts. Yeah. Thank you. I'm glad you're here. He's been doing good work. Randall was a known gossip and was in fact taken to court by his cousin, Pleasant McCoy, for spreading a rumor that Pleasant had fucked a cow. Randall was also known to be just an all around miserable bastard who could clear room because

nobody wanted to be around to hear his constant complaining about everything. But in another contrast to Devilands Hat Field, Randall McCoy's first choice for a confrontation was not usually violence, but frivolous lawsuits, which were extremely common in the tug valley. You know, it probably helped a lot of violence from happening because then you can kind of do all this, but it's just, it's country court.

It's country court, yeah. This, however, was not because Rand random McCoy was not a violent man. Rather, it was mostly because his wife was a deeply religious woman who took the concept of turning the other cheek seriously and Randall often did what his wife said. But much to Randall McCoy's harm in a place where violence equaled respect and inaction

equaled weakness, turning the other cheek only emboldened the Hat Fields and led to the deaths of many of Randall and Sarah's children. Now one of the big misconceptions about the Hat Field McCoy feud was that every Hat Field hated every McCoy and that a fight or a gun battle was likely to break out between them if they ever crossed paths. Now this was true for some, but not the majority kind of unfortunately, because I love the idea of like every hat feel hate. Like it's like you picture gangs of New York, like you picture like these two huge

like tick gangs, these teams, they all got clubs and bats and they're across the river and they're about to fucking just bump on each other. Like it's a big British battle. But that's just when we covered Biggie and two pock, all these various here, clubs and bats and they're across the river and they're about to fucking just bump on each other. Like it's a big British battle. But that's just when we covered Biggie and two Pock and all these various, here are these types of things. You start to see like it's a little bit more complicated, much more. Most people just try to live their lives, not being in a bloody feud.

Also, there's not that many other people around. It's not, I mean, it's hundreds. There's a bunch of it. Yeah. Well, it's right to fighting. There's enough and I mean, it's hundreds. There's a bunch of it. Yeah. Well, it's right to fighting. There's enough and hanging because it's a small area. And so they would meet together as a community fairly often, but it was for giant special events. It's just like hanging. Yes. Like hanging. And every court, every time they have like a country court thing, they'd all get to show up and hang out, do a bunch of shit. It was kind of an excuse to hang out,

like what we do with work. Yeah. Many of the hat fields in McCoy's actually intermingled and intermarried, and most of them didn't participate in the feud at all. Speaking to random McCoy's popularity, even within his own family, only one third of his force were real McCoy's, so to speak.

And even those were essentially bullied into participating. Really, the main reason why people started coming to random McCoy side was because the Hatfields were too powerful for McCoy to beat. And since so many of these guys had experience with Gorilla combat into the Civil War, the feud was never gonna stop until some lawful resolution against the Hatfields could be reached. But then that calls in the government and then they get to do whatever they want, yeah, with your land.

Yep. Now, as far as why the Hatfields were more powerful than the McCoys, it all came down to a crooked land deal that would come back to bite devil ants in the ass years after the swindle went down. Now, this is where we had deep into Marcus territory. What? I mean, it's important. Yes, but where, you know, just remember, you know, this is where we had deep into Marcus territory. What? I mean, it's important. Yes.

But where, you know, just remember, you know, this is history, you gotta learn it. Yeah. Land deals are a part of it. Yeah, they absolutely are. If you didn't know about the land deal, the rest of the story is not gonna make any fucking sense. All I know is big hats, long beer.

So there'd been a man in the tug fork valley named Jacob Klein, nicknamed Rich Jake, presumably because he owned 6,000 acres of land. It's a lot of land. Yeah. His nearest neighbor was Devil Lant's Hatfield, who at the time had no land other than a small plot where his cabin was. It was because his father for some reason cut him out of the legacy and he gave land equal

amount of land to all the rest of his brothers. He didn't get anything and they mostly think it's just because he was an asshole. Well, they think, well, maybe not asshole, but uncontrollable. Wiley, he was wild. He was very wild and you couldn't trust devilans. His name is devil. He had to live up again. His name is Anderson.

Yeah. So eventually the devil, then he had to kind of act the part. Yeah. But after Rich Jake died, the land passed to his son, Perry Klein. But after. Perry Klein is a name that doesn't belong in this either. It sounds like somebody that was on designing women. Does that one have to be a lawyer?

Yeah. And Perry Klein did eventually become an attorney. There we go. Wow. Yep. After a lot of legal maneuvering, bullying and palm greasing, devil ants snatched 5,000 of Perry Klein's 6,000 inherited acres, making devil ants one of the largest landowners in the valley virtually overnight. Perry Klein moved to the nearest city, became an attorney and would later, side with McCoy's.

Oh, yeah, slowly, devilance was now the owner of thousands of acres of forest, which turned him into a relatively small time timber baron. And it would be his loyal employees and those who had an economic interest in devilance's timber operation, who would make up a large part of the Hatfield force in the feud. This is definitely where you get to sort of the sleepy history part, but it is slightly interesting. And it's extremely not this part.

Not this one. Not this one. I was just learning that they're all not family members. And it's like random, y'all. I can kill it. Say in my fact, I was counting my fact, which is that before this time period, oftentimes when people would move into the Appalachian area, they would gather sustenance from the forest, and they would do wild hog raising where the

hogs would go out in the forest, and then they would go and find them and would tie them to get them to slaughter them. They would go and find their own individual hogs. Now this is when it started to change, where they realized instead of getting our sustenance from the forest, the forest itself would be our money-making area. Yep, our commodity because right around the time the devil ants got ahold of the timber, this was after the civil war. And if you remember during the civil war, a lot of buildings got burned down. Yes. A lot of shit got destroyed and a lot of shit needed to be reconstructed. So therefore, having a timber operation on the fucking border of the Confederacy was big

fucking money. Yeah. Especially and then Kentucky was burned down. Everything was burned down. I mean, this is like Sherman's March. You know, well, Sherman, I mean, that was Georgia, but still he had to get there. Oh, but when it comes to the long simmering resentments that actually led to the Hatfield, McCoy feud, we're actually going to travel back to the civil war. I feel like I feel it. Yeah, we're going to go back to the point before Devil Lance became a landowner before Randall McCoy got pissed off at him. We are now in 1863. Okay.

The sound of 1863. 1660. Yeah. And now we're going to get into the aforementioned Gorilla warfare that occurred on the borderlands between the Union and the Confederacy, i.e. the Tug Valley. See, during the Civil War, Kentucky remained in the Union while Virginia seceded to the Confederacy. But in 1863, West Virginia seceded from the Confederacy to rejoin the Union, which is why we still have Virginia and West Virginia. Okay. Cool. Yeah.

That's a nice, that's a fun little fact. Good. Yeah. You can talk to that. You can talk to that. You can talk to that. You can talk to that. You can talk to that.

You can talk to that. You can talk to that. You can talk to that. You can talk to that. You can talk to that. You can talk to that. You can talk to that. You can talk to that. You can talk to that. You can get into the brother versus brother shit. Yeah. Yeah. That's where you get to the guerrilla warfare. That's the broader. Was that glory? Yeah. The sun Virginian soldiers switched sides to the union when West Virginia was created,

but others remained in the Confederacy and became extraordinarily violent and effective guerrilla fighters. Basically, this is Vietnam and Appalachia. As a testament to how dangerous and brutal the Tug Valley in particular was, future president James Garfield, then a union colonel wrote that the people of the valley excelled at bloodletting, and he was shocked by the quote, bitter, remorseless killing. Now I'm shot at my name would be used for the fat orange cat. Yeah. How he didn't have odious as VP is like I'm so I think I'm so bad. I think so much time again. I'm you every fucking day. And yet normal as secretary of state. I can't believe it. More criminal. Well, in a classic civil war testimony, and if we may get the obligatory,

Ken Burns Civil War music while I read this, I just every single Hatfield and McCoy documentary makes me feel like I'm waiting online to go on splash mountain. And that is that a bad thing? I'm just saying it's all the same. Build the story, the Hatfield, because there's a lot more complicated than you think it is. Do you know what I learned recently?

You know the difference between a violin and a fiddle? A fiddle is played by a racist person. Ah! Come in for new fiddle. Obviously fiddle kind of is great. I take offense to that. You're causing my cousin Liz. Yeah, I was just wondering.

She's wonderful. She's wonderful. Fantastic fiddle. I'm sorry that's a little bit of a pineyre. And you love fiddle music. She's wonderful. She's wonderful. Fantastic. I'm sorry, there's some there's some there's some and you love fiddle music. I think I love fiddle music. That's just a good joke and

it's nothing I can do about it. James Garfield. Well, James Garfield, you will have the music come in. Well, James Garfield had this to say about his campaign in the Tug Valley. We were there to root out the

infernal devil that has made this valley a home of fiends and converted this war into a black hole in which to murder any man that any soldier from MV lust or avenged hated. James Garfield 1861. Turn off that fucking TV, Marcus! Turn that shit off, it's time to watch football! 1861 turn off that fucking TV The music is so soothing It was watching documentary of the documentary or just It's like Fiddler on the roof if there was no roof. Fiddler on my aunt's butthole. I love that musical. Not suggested by some historians that it was the confusion of living in the border

lands that added kindled to the fire when the feud came 20 years later, because some were union and some were Confederate. But in reality, loyalties were a mess even within the families themselves. There were Hatfields who fought for the Confederacy and Hatfields who fought for the union, and even within the feud forces 20 years later, two McCoy's who participated served the union while another was a Diedemool Confederate. But as far as random McCoy went, we don't even know who he supported or if he even cared at all who won. He didn't want to be involved. Yeah. Although it could be inferred that he was probably a union man because he was buried at a

cemetery named after a union colonel who hired free black men and led union forces. That was a huge, I mean, that was a huge, huge thing in post of a war America. I might be wrong. So please, I'd stories LPL, gmail.com, but it did seem to be at the time period. The sentiment is that if you're not choosing a side, you're choosing the union. You know, I mean, that's the, that's what you're, that's how the Confederates viewed it as your weed because they were highly passionate about slavery and everybody else was not. Also, I imagine where they're from. I mean, I'm probably wrong when I say this, but wasn't attacked that much just because of all the

fucking mountains and hills. I mean, who knows? I feel like there's a, you know, after the guerilla warfare comes in. Yeah. Yeah. But apart from all that, random McCoy was 35 when the war started and had no interest in serving at his age. Devil Ants, meanwhile, was 21 when the war broke out. He ended up fighting for the Confederacy, but not for the reasons you might think. To show just how petty, complicated, and nonsensical people's participation in the civil war could be

on the borderlands, Devil devil ants probably would have joined the union side If not for the fact that he'd been accused of being a Confederate spy by a union general before he made the decision So devil ants join the Confederacy not because he wanted to defend the institution of slavery. Because no one in the area could afford to even have them. Nor did he join out of fear of what freed black people, man. Which that was what people who couldn't afford slaves. That was part of their reason for finding it. They're fear of it, but they were so far from fucking anything. Yeah.

Nor did he join for so-called states rights, which is what a lot of other people said. Like, we want to have the right to do whatever the fuck we want to do, even if it is slavery. Yeah. And he didn't do it to defend his land from invaders at least at first, which is what other guys used as a justification for fighting for the Confederacy. True to form, concerning his later thirst for revenge, devil ants joined the Confederate

army for no reason more complicated than a personal grudge. I got a reason. Fuck them. Sometimes I'm really need. You know what, man, you say that. And now I like, I'm thinking about back to my ancestors who fought in the Civil War admittedly for the Confederacy. Yeah. God damn, I can see a fucking ancestor of mine saying exactly that.

Yeah. It is. Fuck them. Yeah. Because they say partially, there really was one vibe I got was that he, people were afraid of any form of massive systemic change. Yes. And so the idea that you're kind of saying here, the idea of like any change they want to

kind of fight against because they don't want anybody. They don't want anything change about the situation they got, especially devilance. You got a pretty fucking sweet, even though he's got, but he's broken his fucking ass off. Well, at 21, he actually, at this point, he had nothing. Oh, yeah, he, he's a back when he, when he was 21 years old, yeah. This is before we got all the land. Yeah, this is before. This is before.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know why, yeah, yeah. No, back, no, he's just, he's full of piss and vinegar. Yeah. That's basically it. He wants to fight for somebody, but he doesn't know for who. More pissed and vinegar. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he really wants to fight for somebody, but he doesn't know for who. And then, StinVinic.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he realized that he wants to fight for somebody. He's a violent person, but he doesn't really know which one to choose until a union general sees him from across the river and goes, there says a Confederate spy. Go get him. And then there's a chase. And devilance gets away. And by the time he gets away, he says, fuck him.

Yeah. And goes and joins the Confederacy. You say that really good. Yeah. It's fun to do. May have to be because I've heard that phrase many times throughout my life. Yeah. I really text like the the parks family crest might as well just say, fuck. Yeah. See in Jersey, it's more fuck these motherfuckers.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, further proving that devalans had no real loyalty to the Confederacy, he and 44 other men deserted the Confederate army after the Battle of Gettysburg. Now, some say it was because devalans had been ordered to hunt down and execute his uncle for desertion. More likely though, devalans and the other deserters have seen after Gettysburg. The south is probably going to lose the war. And sounded like the battle of Gettysburg wasn't like cool. Yeah.

Like, it was like bad. It was real. Basically, 100,000 people are some shit. I don't know the exact body count, but it's, it's not as bad as like anti-item. Like, I think that's the most, that's the most American lives lost in a single day is at anti-edim. But every one of these work was very bad. Yeah, these civil war battles are like not fun. Like you get, it's all the infection. It's like three days of fucking just people

laying their scream and bleed and fucking horses dead everywhere. Not so many dead horses. It's so bad that I don't even, I feel like even doing the reenactment. Bucks fucking horrible. It's kind of hard, yeah. I mean, more men died from disease than from battles. Yeah, which I'm saying is worse.

I think that's worse than fucking just getting shot mad. It's really bad, yeah. Well, as I said, you know, devil ants after Gettysburg and all these other guys, they saw the South's gonna lose the war and considering the scorched earth tactics employed during Sherman's March, a year later, devil ants and his men returned to tug fork to defend it from union attacks.

And so once devil ants returned to tug fork, he formed a 600 man guerrilla band called the Logan Wildcats. Fuck yeah. Their purpose, they claimed, was to defend the valley against avenging union troops, which was indeed a problem as it always is when armies marched through populated areas. Just because their union doesn't mean they're morally sound. Yeah, our armies. They're armies. I was happy we all get together. But number one, we're going to defend our land against these Union soldiers. Number two, we're going to play the world's largest game of

Thunder's and Dragons. I got all the snacks. But while protection against the other side is understandable, the Logan Wildcats and other Borderland guerrilla groups like them also terrorized and murdered families in the Tug Valley who supported the union. Even if those people were just minding their own business trying to eke out a living in the middle of an active war zone. I feel like we're not heroes. Yeah, and this was not really the time period to do the thing where we have a sign out

front that says like, choose love. Yeah. This house chooses beer. I'll need that. That's a good one. This house chooses beer. Yeah. This is like Renee Zellweger cold mountain time, right? I I only that. That's a good one. This house chooses beer. Yeah. This is like Renee Zoweger cold mountain time, right?

I never saw that. Oh, it's horrible. Yeah. Yeah, it's SOTS, man. Reese witherspoon fucking SOTS. Yeah, yeah. It was a Reese wasn't. It was the cold kidman.

Oh, yeah. Renee Zoweger. Renee Zoweger. You know what? You wouldn't even that cold. Could have been colder. That's all we're saying. That's all we're saying. Oh, yeah. So I You want even that cold. Could have been colder. That's all we're saying.

That's all that. Cool. Dis Mountain hyperbole. But as it happened, the most ruthless. I'm sorry, Reese with her spoon. Also, I did attack you. Yeah, you did just attack Reese. I come on the show.

Yeah, sure. She's wonderful Reese's piece. She's good. She's actually, she's fine. But as it happened, the most ruthless of the Logan Wildcats was the very uncle that devil ants had supposedly been ordered to execute. That was devil ants's uncle on his mother side. Bad gym vans. Reportedly bad gym had a condition that seemed to be fairly common in Appalachia that caused his

eyes to bulge from his head and roll around on their own accord. But as people who knew him put it, he could draw a pistol faster and a copperhead could stride. You give me a crown? I fucking draw out of that. I draw guns so fast. I don't care that I don't know where the paper is. In other words, his condition made him a tough son of a bitch because he most likely grew up beating the shit out of kids who made fun of it. That's great training and continued to strike whenever necessary as an adult against anyone stupid enough to crack wise about his eyes. It's like Dick Buckis. He's got that horrible name and it's kick everyone's ass.

Oh yeah, you can't handle that. Yeah, Dick dip buckets had to turn into a guy kick the shit out of people. Yeah. All right. I think he wanted to fucking go for it because he couldn't easily have went for Richard Buckess. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Call me dip fuckess. Call me dead. It's like on his license. So after leaving another guerrilla group called general witchers, raiders, who were known to slaughter union supporters on mass and raise farms while flying a black flag, bad gem joined his nephew, devil ants, Hatfield and the Logan Wildcats.

Seemingly, the Wildcats spent more time searching for targets than they did defending against union troops. But even though there were a lot of guys in Tug 4 who had joined the Union, the iron of the Logan Wildcats and therefore the iron of the Hatfields became focused on a man named Harmon McCoy. I don't know why everyone has to come at me, Harmon McCoy. I'm a simple, what was he? Harmon, Harmon.

You know, I think he was a colonel. Yeah. I'm just a little bit of colon. I don't know why everybody's so mad at me. The Harmon McCoy got on Devil Lance's bad side because Harmon was the guy who chased after Devil Lance when the Union General said, hey, there's a spy over there.

Yeah, that's the reason. Yeah. And that's the whole reason. Remember, that's the whole reason why devilance joined the fucking Confederacy. Yeah. It's a lot of stuff. Now, devilance might have been able to forget the accusation, but Harman had also shot one of devilance's friends in the chest and stolen his horses.

That'll do it. That'll do it. Now, so devilance first tracked down the general who accused him of espionage. He started a clean and house and he shot him in his home while he was taking a piss in his chamber pot. That's like old school. That's gangster fucking shit. Yeah.

That's just walking up behind someone and popping him in the back of the head. He's a fucking general, too. Yeah. A general crazy. Yeah. And this is while the war is like still happening. I mean, it's winding down. It's near the end of it, but still Pretty soon after the Logan Wildcats tracked down Harmon McCoy and attempted to assassinate him while he was drawing water from as well After feeling a bullet whizz past his face

Harmon quickly gathered supplies and fled to a nearby cave to wait things out. He's hanging upside down from a stalactite. That's what I'm saying. They can't tell. I'm not in bad. I am not in bad. No, was this a Kentucky? This is actually I don't know if this is the Kentucky side of the West Virginia stuff.

It's a bunch of caves in Kentucky. It's super close. It's very close. I mean, this is all borderland stuff. It's close enough to not make much of a difference. Okay. What is Madel state lie? What calm is down to block being spilled on the wall.

But just as soon as Harmon McCoy started making his way home, he found that the Logan Wild cats had been waiting and he was subsequently shot and killed. Now, Devil Ants said that he had nothing to do with the murder of Harmon McCoy, claiming that he was sick at home and bed at the time. Etch-y, etch-y! Wally! In fact, this would be Devil Ants' alibi again and again throughout the few, that he couldn't

possibly be held responsible because he was at home with the sniffles when such and such murder occurred. Hey, nutty you bitches ever have allergies. Even so, it was probably bad gym vans who had killed Harmon McCoy. There was not, however, sufficient evidence to prosecute, especially since there was the matter of the ongoing civil war, which ended just three months after Harmon McCoy was killed. It's a time that I'd imagine a lot of scores were getting settled. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, because it's truly, some of these guys probably even know that the war's over. Not not. Yeah, no one's looking. No, you know, just on the edge of dead bodies. If the news hasn't gotten to you, you're still fighting the war. Yeah. But the fact that big gym bands probably killed Harmon McCoy, that didn't stop one of the main antagonists and the few to come, Randall McCoy, from blaming devilans.

See Randall McCoy was Harmon McCoy's brother. Just absorb this. Yeah. Remember this as we go. There are some names. You did a fantastic job of slimming out some of the name. There are so many motherfuckers. This is like expert level game of throne.

Shit. This is just so just to remember. So we got devil ants. He's the main dude. That's devil ants had feel that Robert stack. What's now Robert stack? What's his name? Uh, herringing Stanton.

No, the guy from game looks like herringing Stanton. Oh, which, which the good stuff. You got Ned Stark, Robert stack on sold mysteries that Ned Stark right he that's him right I don't think anyone's a star the other guy's the guy from the island town no I would say that if anyone am I helping no I would say if we did transposis to game of thrones, devil ants would probably be a, the one, the, the landister. Yeah.

Yeah. The land, the land, the one with the money. And yeah, I would say the McCoy's would probably be, yeah, the, the people on the sea, the island people, the island people. Yeah. yeah, because they don't got shit for shit. Yeah, but they're bitter, bitter. They're very bitter and they're very tough. Yeah, so yeah, that would back kind of sort of works. It's not helpful.

I grow in this wall. Well, starting in 1866, random McCoy began harassing devil ants had field with frivolous lawsuits over farm animals and such and such. They were basically just meant to annoy devil ants and devil ants return the favor with frivolous lawsuits of his own. This back and forth went on for 13 years. Yeah, man.

And while devil ants became one of the largest landowners in the area with the acquisition of rich, Jake clients property in the meantime, random, a coy remained a curmudgeon with very little power and very little land. Yeah, this dude had it kind of going on. He had a huge workforce. He was starting a bunch like they were like, it was like a, the land, if this kind of feels very medieval. Where you're going up a guy that has like a fucking, like it's a feudal lord that you're dealing with. I don't still know why they all had so many nicknames

when there wasn't even that many people. I know it's crazy, right? I did think about that. I think that, what did they did and what they didn't have? Remember how trapper keepers used to allow us to express our personality. I don't know. Right, they don't have funny t-shirts.

They don't have nine and 10 voices in my head. Say don't shoot. Right. Have those things, right? Like, so how do they express themselves? That's what they do. Yeah. So one guy just shows up. And then also, who knows, you trip over a teapot, your trippin' tea McGillicutty. You know, that's a great name. It would be a trippin' tea McGillicutty. Yeah. Do you have like an Irish rapper? I feel like it's straight up their version of me wearing different kinds of shoes. Okay. Well, likewise, random McCoy's many sons had even less power than him, which was a situation that was not going to change and they knew it. This, some

believe, was one of the driving factors behind the feud. See, this was one of those times in places in American history where the next generation was Guaranteed to be worse off than their father's generation heard that story, baby I mean this is like the housing crisis of 2008. Yeah, but back then it came as a consequence of the industrial revolution Right in the middle of the Hatfield, McCoy feud families all over the tug valley were being swindled out of their land because a massive coal vein had been discovered in their backyard. And more were cheated out of the land when it became necessary to build railroads to transport the coal out of tug valley. Black gunk, Texas shit.

There. The glue. Who is that? That's a guy from the half-filled McCoy show. It's very top of us. It's a theme song. But it was, as soon as they want that coal, man. They want as soon as that coal was to say was they said it was a 13-foot wide vein. It was an extra. I mean, this was like Tommy Lee.

Yeah. Well, therefore, you had a lot of angry young men like random McCoy's sons with no purpose, no future and no hope, which as we know, almost always results in mass violence. Woodstock 99. Those are all Trump's. They got nowhere to go. They got nothing to do. There's no war.

Yeah, no water. It's hot. They had to go. Frittersed. Yeah, no water. It's hot. They had to go. Fred Durst. That's what this is missing. Back cat backwards cat. Fred Durst. Actually, if you could distill it all down to one song, it would be break stuff. Oh, yes. Yeah. Bad Fred. Bad Fred Dirtz. See, these boys were looking for something to make them a hero, something to set them apart,

something to make them feel anything but despair. Well, they also did a bunch of years of guerrilla warfare and how the fuck do you just tell them shut that off and your fucking brain? Well, a lot of these kids, a lot of the younger kids, they didn't, they didn't participate, but they did have uncles and fathers who told them how to do it. Yeah, they're all like Richard Ramirez is uncle. They're all like the same style of like a cousin with a guy they came in and to explain how fun violence is. Yeah, I'm show them the pictures like here's a picture of me raping Vietnamese woman. Here's a picture of her

head. So do you have to have anything of like fun meals you ate or like anything who saw her in Ho Chi Minh City was incredible. But participating in feuds, IE gang warfare, that was the easiest way to reach this goal, feeling anything else, feeling some sense of purpose, and a lot of people in Appalachia died as a result. This of course benefited nobody, but the very industrialists who were destroying their way of life. Oh yeah, they just watched them all fight, And they know we're going to bring my big old government,

Skbun, and I'm going to skid off. I'm going to drink your fucking milkshake. Yeah. The constant murderous feuds. Skbun. Skbun. Yeah. I'll spoon your milk.

Fuck you. I'll fuck you. Fuck you both. The constant murderous feuds allowed companies to frame the theft and destruction of Appalachia as bringing civilization to the savage whites of the mountain. And what could be seen is a sort of large-scale industrial gentrification. Look at how bad they're fucking it up. We got to come in and fix it. We got to. Therefore, people outside of Appalachia actually applauded the changes taking place,

seeing it as progress because the ensuing media coverage of the Hatfield, McCoy feud, portrayed them all as backwards barbaric hillbillies. Well, barbarian was the word used a lot to describe these people. Some of their behavior didn't help. No, it did not. But still, they, you know, they just had our coal. And there were a lot of people in New York and Boston That would be in like, oh that coal look mighty fine over here. Mm-hmm But as far as the Appalachian people went the fudes themselves were somewhere between a problem and a welcome distraction In other words in an area where churches and schools were limited and very few people knew how to read in an area where churches and schools were limited and very few people knew how to read,

feuds were entertainment. See, while a lot of people on Appalachia didn't participate in the feuds directly, they loved following them. They loved talking about them. It's basically a reality TV show where you could conceivably get killed if you're not careful. But differently, while the people of Appalachia

were busy with distractions, the industrialists took their lands bit by bit. And before the people of West Virginia knew it, they'd gone from independent mountain folk to wage slaves. It's just that easy. It's really fun, but it really was. Oh, my soul to the company Stone You got 16 tons. What did you get another day? You'll end a deeper and get Oh, damn Peter don't tell me oh, oh my soul to the company

So dude, it's very depressing. You get my shit. See, once these people had no choice, but to become coal miners, they were paid in script, which could only be spent at the store owned by the company they worked for. That's what Tennessee Ernie Ford was talking about. This made escape from poverty,

or even escape from the area impossible. Yeah, because now you got Apple H bucks. Yeah. You have to spend. That inescapable fate reverberated down through the generations. And that's partly why West Virginia now has the highest rate of opioid overdoses in the nation by a country mile. And that's how the Hatfield and McCoy feud led to the opioid epidemic in Appalachia. I absolutely side with the opinion that the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys is a far more consequential piece of American history than what people think it is, especially when

you consider that this area of the country is more or less the cradle of the current opioid at them. I mean, just watch the wild and wonderful whites of West Virginia. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. But you know what? It's like a smoke screen.

The Hatfield, McCoyd, feud story sort of a smoke screen over what really happened, which is we have this like super interesting, violent feud, which we're covering because it's fun and we love history. But as you were coming underneath it, it's this like, it's how the people with a broad view, yeah, viewed what they were going to do to this small part of the country, because they were just rolling under the wheels of manifest destiny. Yeah, I mean, like, and even like, we're talking a lot about West Virginia, but Kentucky is a sad ass place too. I mean, like even their grass is blue.

Thank you. But the consequential nature of the feud makes the overall catalyst all that more ridiculous, because while their way of life was slowly crashing down around their ears, The sequential nature of the feud makes the overall catalyst all that more ridiculous. Because while their way of life was slowly crashing down around their ears, they were all sitting around arguing about a god damn hog. Several hogs! Not to be fair, hog theft was serious business to mountain folk. Having plenty of pork could be the difference between life and death during Appalachian winners. And hogs made up a large portion of a farmer's wealth

because they could be sold for cash during hard times. It was an asset. As the local saying went, because every part of the hog was used in somewhere or another after slaughter, the only thing they wasted was the squeal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I need to squeal if I could. I bet you would. That's all to say that Hog theft and tug valley was near a kin to horse theft out west, although the way farmers kept their hogs left ownership pretty easy to model and therefore open accusation and argument.

What's both about over over familiarity has two sides to it, because there's one side of like, what we all know, each other's stuff, but it's also the other side is we all know each other's stuff. So these pigs were marked in a way. Well, I'll go get to that here in a second. See, since the razor-back hogs raised by the farmers of Appalachia were territorial, they were left to wander and forge in the forest that surrounded their farms during the spring and summer.

And then in the fall, they were hurt at home for fattening and slaughter. It seems like such a fucking pain in the ass. But you can do though, but you, but I still do that. Yeah, they just let me. My family got in the forest and then my family still does that. You let them out in the pasture. And then when you need them, if you need to, you know, give them medication, go put them to bed or stuff.

Like literally, I mean, there's like other pigs that are like in a pen and shit, but these are wild. Well, these aren't, no, these are all their pigs. Yeah, these, these are all, yeah, the hogs that aren't. But your family doesn't go like, literally, I mean this. I thought that a farmer would go, he has, he wakes him up, he wakes up the pigs. Rancher. And he gives him, wherever that guy is, he goes out there and he feeds him,

and he gets me, slops him up. And then they hang out all day, right? And they do whatever pigs do, right? And then I thought he put them to sleep. Like I thought that they would come and let him really go and hug them and sing to them. And I thought that they would have to, there's like a trend. Well, I don't know from pigs, but I know with cattle, like we, they are set out onto the pasture to graze. You leave them out, you know, and you leave them out there. No, they stay out there.

So you never bring them back in. No, sometimes you do. When when you kill them, yeah, when you, yeah, when you're one to, when it's, when it's Kevin season, uh, when you want to get, when you have to medicate him, we have to get him back scenes or anything like that, uh, when you're going to take him to the cell, when you have to Medicaid them, we have to get them vaccines or anything like that. When you're going to take them to the cells where they get slaughtered, they just live out there.

Oh, wow. Yeah. And then sometimes you got to go out and you got to get on a horse and you got to go find it. Oh, wow. Yeah, because you go and you count, because you do count the cows every day and you're like up, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it,

it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, 95 96 97 great that know up 99's missing and then you know by the ear tags, you know, like up 98's missing. We got to go look for 98's and get on the horse. I'm a pain in the goddamn ass. It's one of the worst jobs in America. Yeah, and they're great. Yeah, cheeseburgers are great. Get me the hammer. They love it. They absolutely love it. Let them. But to make sure that you didn't confuse your neighbor's hog for your own

Farmers made individual notches on the hogs ear to identify it welcome to fucking agriculture corner everybody I hope you all have your FFA membership. Yeah, this is again, it's a Marcus Well when I was born my mother put some stripes of my ear and like I never got too far I'm like, I never got too far. Yeah. Because she knew that's my hog. Even besides that, though, most farmers were said to be able to identify their hogs by sight alone. Sure. And this is how Randall McCoy came into conflict with Floyd Hatfield. One day, whilst Randall McCoy was out searching for a missing hog, he passed by Floyd Hatfield's

farm and thought that he recognized the missing hog amidst Floyd's hogs And so a hearing was convened at preacher Ants Hatfield's cabin to sus out who this hog belongs Hog justice This was apparently the social event of the season as seemingly the whole valley descended upon this cabin wearing their Sunday best to go see Where this hog was gonna end up. I feel like this is the perfect example of when you could do the thing of, and so I will split this hog in half. No. Let him have the hog.

He could, he's like, all right, he takes hog immediately cuts it in half. No, actually one of the, I think it was one of them. Coise later said it's like, if they wouldn just barbecued that hog up, we could have saved a lot of trouble. Yeah. Just barbecue it up on the spot. And indeed, when the hearing convened, the hog and question was trotted inside and placed in the middle of the cabin.

So arguments could be made concerning who was going to go home with the hog. No, I say, I do say I say, I say, I say I say here, we need to put the hall on the stand. Now, Mr. Hogue or is it Mrs. Hogue? Let me see, oh, gotta put it, Mrs. Hogue, can you point towards your rifle owner? God damn it, Mrs. Hogue, I'm gonna fucking, I'm gonna marry you. You can't fucking, I would have super sick so much shit be squeal out of me any day Oh my god chicken toe oh suck the squeal out of squeal out honestly I'm gonna start saying that

because sometimes I do need to get the squeal sucked out it's very important Well some people upon that the hog bore random McCoy's notches on its ears. Others said that the notches were so disfigured as to be unrecognizable, while some even tried arguing that there were no notches at all. And that's just how the hog's ears were. Just cut the ear off and feed it to a dog.

Just everybody eat the pig. Everybody eat it. Now the monkey in the middle of all this was, as I said, devilance is good natured counterpart, preacher ants, who did not want to take personal responsibility for declaring ownership of this hop. Pussy. Well, I mean, it was a hard, even at this point, before the feud even started,

it was not a good idea to take sides between the Hatfields and the McCoy. Even if you were a Hatfield or a McCoy, preacher ants is just, he's a good-natured man. Yeah. He does not want trouble. I just want things to be cool here, man. Yeah. He also couldn't get anyone to serve on the jury because if the McCoy's one,

the Hatfields might punish the jurors economically. But if the Hatfields one, then the McCoys were likely to get violent because they were, according to one study, scientifically violent. Yeah, that had it through. Look at this. See, one of the more interesting wrinkles in this tale actually came over a hundred years after the feud in 2007. Yeah, that's weird.

We're an endocrinologist published a study showing that modern macois suffer from a hereditary disease called Bon Hippo Lindow Syndrome. Petulant ass hole flu. This syndrome produces small tumors all over the body, but interestingly, 75% of the modern McCoy's tested had tumors on their adrenal glands, which caused their production of adrenaline to greatly increase

and this increase in adrenaline, of course, caused regular violent outbursts. Do you think this is why Holden turns into such an asshole? He's from the North Carolina. And his fucking grandparents were first cousins. Yes, baby. I want to pop. Do you think if you shaved the top of his lump,

there'll be a little angry face in it? Yeah. It's just a nice meeting. I, lumps on a person do not make them happier. I know. No, it doesn't. Unless it's these two, the big tits. Yeah.

But do your lumps make you happy? They make me me. And isn't that the best answer you can give? It's just me. That is fucking awesome though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My adrenal gland. Yeah. That is literally what might have caused a lot of there just like literally going. It's all by now. Now this exploration doesn't quite cover why the half-fields were also extremely violent, but considering how the two families enter married so much prior to the feud, it's possible that this syndrome was present on both sides of the conflict, especially when you consider a lot of the participants weren't official hat fields or official

macois. It's just this fucking syndrome is just in this area. Yeah. Now, preach your aunt's hat field eventually figured out a way to kick the can down the road by appointing six hat fields and six McCoy's to the jury, hoping that all of them will vote down family lines and hang the case. But then we're just a pig go. That I don't think he was thinking that. Just fucking do a barbecue for everybody. That's what everybody keeps saying. That's what they said.

They said if they would have done that, then we could have avoided all of this. However, yeah, we could have we could have avoided all of this. However, yeah, we could have, they could have avoided all of this. And West Virginia would now be like fucking Atlantis. Oh, whatever you can. Yeah. Like Wakanda. Like you show up as like floating cities above West Virginia.

All hands on a big. However, after a man named Bill Staten's war that he saw Floyd Hatfield not the hog himself with his own eyes, one of the McCoy's cited with the Hatfields, saying that Randall didn't have any evidence to counter Bill Staten's testimony. More likely though, this McCoy cited with the Hatfields because he'd fought with the Logan Wildcats with Devil Lance during the Civil War and two of his sons worked on Devil Lances Timber crew. Additionally, Devil Lance awarded this McCoy a hundred and twenty acres of land after the trial. You know what's interesting? He kind of reminds me a lot of John Gotti. I watched a John Gotti documentary that's on Netflix and because that's what he did when he first got off

on the first like series of racketeering charges, John Gotti very publicly paid off like four jurors, like 60 K apiece. Yeah. And so Floyd Hatfield got the hog, although from that day forward until the day he died, he had to live with the name Although from that day forward until the day he died, he had to live with the name, hog Floyd hat fee. I just need a formal appeal. Is there a way for me to talk to some judge? I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just,

I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, I just, just, I just got the hog. He became hog flocus. Oh, done hog floyd happy old watch out for him. He's going to make a big ol stink about his hog. He got one more. Oh, I guess if you're a defensive lineman, it's a great nickname. Oh, yeah. Hog floyd hat field. Oh, he sounds like fucking place for Alabama. Yeah, it just eats quarterbacks. So cool. Now from there, the feud came and fits and starts mostly in the form of rock throwing. It was a lot of rock throwing. What else can I do with them? And half-hearted gunfights between

boats on the river that wouldn't have been out of place in a trailer park boys episode. Like, you know, when they get into gunfights and when I'm get shot and they're like, time out for yaks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But each time a hat field got his ass kicked by a McCoy, a hat field would return the favor and vice versa. And Matt tell you, I, I for an eye makes everyone blind. Gandhi said that while he was fucking a little girl. She was like, thank you. Thank you, big daddy. Well, Mother Teresa was in the corner saying she deserved it. Yeah, you're lying. That she was going to be close to God after it happened.

I know they're fucking leopards. We've got money for me. But in the fall after the hog trial, the feud finally came down to murder when random McCoy's nephew, squirrel hunting Sam McCoy. That's why I'm sad to you would play it. That's why LPL. You definitely say that because I did such a stellar job with Tollas Joe and you imagine them to be the same people. Yes, absolutely.

Their cousins. Well, squirrel hunting Sam McCoy. That's a long nickname. Squirrel hunting Sam McCoy. Yeah. Squirrel. No, he calls squirrel hunting Sam McCoy. That's a long nickname. Squirrel hunting Sam McCoy. Yeah, because he just called him squirrel. No, he called squirrel hunting Sam. Cause I would imagine he would take,

he would take issue with squirrel because he killed squirrels. That's true. Yeah. Kill him, kill him. He obviously has no love for squirrels. Cause he got his name because he'd walk the same 25 mile stretcher road every day, just to hunt squirrels.

Sometimes he'd kill 100 squirrels in a day, and then he'd show up at the church and say, Hey day, just to hunt squirrels. Sometimes you kill 100 squirrels a day, and they show up at the church and say, hey, I got you these squirrels. You're gonna save them to community dinner? You know. Thanks. Wow, more squirrels. I do find it interesting.

I've actually had many people talk about liking squirrels, eating squirrels. I think it's one of those, depending on where you're at in the country, and especially in the Appalachia area, if you eat squirrel, you kind of get a taste for it. I don't imagine, yeah. Check out wings of the forest. Well, squirrel hunt and send McCoy crossed paths with Bill Staten, whose testimony, if you'll remember, had supposedly swayed the turncoat McCoy during the hog trial. Bill Staten, by the way, wasn't even a hat feel by blood.

His sister was married to Ellison Hatfield, Devil Lance's brother. And since Devil Lance was a local mover and shaker, Staten, of course, hitched his wagon to the Hatfield clan. Oh, yes. It's happened a lot. Bill Staten is just like, like, he's a hangar on. He's a part of it. He's a, a, by marriage. He's in the, he's in the Hatfield family by marriage. He's cripp by association. Sure. Sure. Now, considering the confrontation between squirrel hunt and Sam and Bill Staten, it's impossible to know

who the actual aggressor was. But according to Sam and his brother, Paris McCoy, it was Bill Staten who decided to take out to McCoy's that day, but considering to Sam and his brother, Paris McCoy, it was Bill Staten who decided to take out to McCoy's that day, but considering Staten's role in the hog trial, I think it's more likely that the McCoy's shot first. Yeah. Or Staten was just dressed like a squirrel. Yeah. He was the first three.

I'd know and knew that he was out there expressing himself not sexually. This is my first son. You not turn to me saying that my persona is wrong. Bill, we're Bill. I'm not saying it's wrong that you think you're a squirrel. I'm just saying we have one associative arms specifically kill squirrels. I kind of wish you go for a rooster. I would rather live on my feet than down my knees.

Excuse me, I gotta go bear some nuts. You're gonna need to go to dogs in a bathtub. But as the story goes and Dean King's book, Bill statin hid behind a bush when he saw Sam, when he saw Sam and Paris come and he's even acting like a squirrel. Yeah. He ambushed the two McCoy's and hit Paris and the hip, Paris fired back and hit Satan in the chest after which the two of them dropped the rifles and fought hand to hand as blood was just spurtin out of their wounds. Cool. Squirrel hunting Sam, meanwhile, was aiming his pistol, but was hesitant to pull the trigger

because he didn't want to hit his brother. But when Bill Satan sunk his teeth into Paris's throat. That's civil war. Yeah. Yeah. About to rip it out. Squirrel hunting Sam put the pistol to state and said and blew his brains all over the Appalachian wilderness. There's one less huge squirrel. Oh, that is how we got caught. He brought it to the church for me. I just thought it was big. I thought it was big. Well, after prying Staten's jaws open, Sam and Paris left the body where Staten was killed. It was found days later decomposed, half eaten, and nearly headless.

And so the score was one Hatfield and one McCoy. Check the overrunner. Well, I'm not exactly sure how it was known that squirrel hunting Sam and Paris McCoy were the killers, but Valentine Hatfield, known to his friends as wall, was the justice of the peace in the district where the murder took place. Kind of feel like they just told people or other people, you know, they came back, not got ourselves in the hallway. Mm-hmm.

A Hatfield. Got ourselves a Hatfield today. Technically a state. Fuck you. Well, Wall Hat Field issued warrants for the arrest of the two McCoy's. But while Paris was captured within a month, it took two years to track down Squirrel Hunt and Sam because I'd imagine anyone named Squirrel Hunt and Sam is going to be a slippery little feller. Yeah. They weren't looking in the trees. Yeah, yeah. would be if I was ever renting a house and on the form, it said like, you know, like Sam Hatfield, you know, like, you know, they say you like, how do you want to be referred to

Skrull Hunt and I just feel like I'm sorry. We can't, you can't be here. Because it's going to be hard to get rent. Skrull Hunt and Sam. And even harder to get rid of them. Both McCoy's, however, were acquitted on grounds of self-defense. Although oral hat field history maintains that it was Devil Ants himself who arranged for their acquittals in the hopes that the feud would go no further. Even if that is true, though, it only put a pause on proceedings because a fateful election

day was fast approaching. Now, election day in Tugfork was an important popular and raucous social function. Whoa, just like we wanted to be with Dave Matthews Bay. There's one local put it, election day was like a wedding without a pastor. Yeah. Look, a party at Kiefer Sutherland's house. Yeah. The pastor's legally not allowed to party at Kiefer Sutherland's house. Yeah. Yeah. It was legally not allowed to go to Kiefer Sutherland.

Everyone again dressed in their Sunday best. Farmers came down from the mountains. They bought and they sold horses. They bought and sold goods and they bought and sold votes. But it was also a drunken fucking mess. See voters were usually bought with whiskey or moonshine. And because most people voted in the morning, everyone was fucking hammered by the afternoon. This is how we get people back to the polls. We make it into a big party like this where it's all the sucking and fucking drinking. Oh man, there was sucking and fucking men picked up women, women picked up. Man, I say we do it now. Do you not do that on election day?

No, I normally sit in a solemn remembrance. I love my cleanse myself with I do a full the animal. Yeah, a bourbon animal. I need a couple to vote for Biden. I'm just gonna be fine. I don't get it. Honestly, it's fun. It's the creepiest vote I've ever done

because you get to vote for an actual skeleton. That's a funny joke. It's a funny joke. We need to, we need to, we need to, we need to, we just have to do it. We just have to do it. Just do it. Well, at these election days,

fights broke out constantly and Fiddler's and Banjo pickers soundtrack the whole thing. Of course, this is before the advent of bluegrass. So this is a different type of pickin' in Banjo. It pickin' and fiddle in the New Year's Day. Ha! Ha!

Yeah! Mumford and Suns without the corporate fucking bullshit. Nah. Ha! Mumford and Dads. Yeah. Fly from your grave. Now the hack fields were big moon shiners.

And since they often had the best liquor and the highest quantity, usually a variety of moons shine called apple jack, their candidates were often the ones that got elected. Now state authorities did try to put an end to this by issuing dozens of indictments, but the hat fields never served a sentence because most of the jurors drank hat field moonshine. And that was besides the fact that the Hatfields were also heavily armed. This is back in the day when the second, quote, unquote, whatever would become the second

amendment meant something because you had the same guns that the government had. It's not like who not against massive robot bodies and drones. Yeah, and tanks. Yeah. But on election day 1882, it was more of a problem of too much applejack than too many guns. And that of course led to the escalation of the Hatfield McCoy feud. Now, by this point, Randall McCoy had racked up a fair number of grievances against the Hatfields. There was of course the matter of the hall. Oh, just but that wasn't the only thing

that bothered Randall. Alison Hatfield had testified against squirrel hunt and Sam McCoy and his brother Paris during their murder trial, even though everyone was saying it was self defense. The land snatch that made devilance powerful had always rubbed Randall McCoy the wrong way. There was a fair amount of jealousy. Yeah, because he also was fucking did technically sort of take it by force. He did ways not a nice man. No, and there'd even been a sort of Romeo and Juliet situation

between devil and son, Johnson and Randall's daughter, Rosanna. And that should have healed everything. Honestly, though, that story is far too complicated and long to go into. But suffice to say, it did not end well for the McCoy's with Johnson eventually marrying Rosanna's cousin Nancy, but only after he left Rosanna to temporarily shack up with a sex worker named Belle Beaver. Love her. My name's Belle Beaver. Hey, I'm Belle Beaver. You're not a cop, so whoops.

Hey, now, hey, you get up in my damn fine, Koshanna. Belle Beaver's on to see a great, well, ex-pim. I really, yeah. Fun, Koshanna. Bell Beaver's on to see a great, relaxed band. Nourilias. Nourilias. But that's all to say that random McCoy, who was known as a constant complainer, had spent years telling his many violent sons all about how terrible the Hatfields were. And on election day 1882, the Hatfield that got caught up in that hatred was Devilance's brother, Ellison Hatfield.

God, this is so exciting. We have nothing like this. I think we have a lot like this. Yeah. Violent local grudges breaking out in the constant murders. This is I think happening all over America every day constantly. If you've not been to Little Rock,

not in a while. Not since Bill and Hillary brought me on that cocaine airplane. Do you remember when that like whole family killed the other family, that little town in Ohio a couple of years ago? Wow. I didn't hear about that.

I'll bring it up on the next time I'm on my side stories. Yeah, perfect. Now, as I said, election day was always a drunken mess to begin with. But when four of random McCoy sons arrived, they were already licked up and ready to throw down. Those sons were Bill, bud, Tolbert and farmer with a pH farmer with a pH, not an F. Yeah,

because that's a name. Yeah, farmer McCoy. Now in one version of the story, the McCoy brothers were causing trouble, racing up and down the roads on their horses and shouting nonsense. Yeah, woo, yeah, Tolbert, for example, jumped off this horse and shouted, yeah, yeah, Tolbert for example jumped off his horse and shouted quote, I'm a hell owner. Fuck yeah But to that Ellison Hatfield who didn't think much to Albert retorted with quote, damn shit hog Now shit hog that's a real thing and a great fucking insult Okay, but shit hogs just so you know, shit hogs are dogs that snuffle

through the manure left behind by other hogs in search of undigested grain. The tasty ones. Double stuff. And the fight, of course, proceeded from there. And another version of the story, though, which is no less stereotypical, tobert was having a grand old time but dancing to a banjo player up on the official buck dancing. Black, hey, yeah, yeah, you know what buck dancing is? Is when you shake your butt and stop your feet. No, buck dancing. Oh, buck dancing. It's a buck dancing. That was fun. That was in the 19 1968. It's Hillbilly tap dancing. Oh, okay. That's almost like it's the music. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I got a good example of that's

Buck dancing that's Buck dance. Yeah, this is the leader of the wild and wonderful wife. This was he was known for I know what Buck dancing I explained to you what Buck dancing was. Yeah, I'm glad you pulled up a video for our podcast I just look at it. They say nothing man. It's so smart. It kind of tells me. I love to see you try Buck Danston. It's difficult. It's extraordinarily difficult.

It's fun to just clip it in cloppin' it's sliding as well. It's just fun to see. Yeah, it is fun to see, but you know. I'm just laughing. No, I don't think it's mad. It's how picking tables are foreign. Well, there was an official buck dance and platform here.

And Tolbert was up there showing off his skills when a hat filled named black alias tried to join an end. Tolbert, however, drunk as he was started shouting the black alias owed him money for a fiddle, which black alias maintained was a debt that had already been paid. You owe me for the fucking fiddle. Fuck you. No, I don't. Fuck you. for the fucking fiddle. Fuck you, no, I don't.

Fuck you. I gave you fiddle fucking money. You went to the gut. Got them tober. I was like, tober, it's a great name to you. Oh, tober, it's a good tober. You're getting on my last nerve. Fuck you tober.

And it feels good. You just, yo, ask me for my opinion. You know, I'm just tober. Shut the fuck up tober. I just, you ask me for my opinion. I'm just tober. Shut the fuck up tober. I just you ask me for it. I think that our audience at home should pause the podcast right now and just say fuck you tober. You talk or just feel real good for a little.

Just label somebody that you hate in your life. A tober. Well, black alias then punched tober in the chin and a fight and suit, which ended when Tolbert knocked Black Elias out cold. But after Black Elias went down, Ellison Hatfield stepped in. Tolbert allegedly called Ellison across between a gorilla and a pole cat. Oh, hey, now, hey, come on. I mean, almost a compliment.

No, I always say he's a big guy. I mean, I crossed between a gorilla and a skunk. It's a terrifying thing to behold. You can spray, you can rip your face off and it's spray shit. Look lumps and you're fucking mouth. That's cool. And so the fight began. But pretty quickly, both men pulled out a couple of knives. Now, while you might have like a switchblade or a hot knife in mind when you picture their weapons, these guys were holding little folding jack knives. They're closer to shibs than machetes. Okay. Regardless, though, both started swiping at each other with their blades of the crowd watched. But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, because Ellison's, you know, size of the gorilla. Yeah. Tolbert got the first stab, although the blade deflected off of Ellison's ribcage, you got it a little bit lower might have killed him.

Since it was just a mere flesh wound, though, Ellison returned with a swipe to Tolbert's face, creating a gash that went from Tolbert's ear to the top of his forehead. But when the two of them crashed together to grapple, Ellison's jackknife closed on his own fingers, removing a weapon from the equation. That however, didn't stop the much larger Ellison whatsoever, who knocked Tolbert to the ground with his heavily bleeding fists, but as Ellison put one hand to Tolbert's throat and punch Tolbert in the chest with the other, Tolbert stabbed Ellison's side over and over with

the jackknife, shredding Ellison's hip and stomach. In the make matters worse, Tolbert's younger brother, Bill McCoy, cowardly stabbed Ellison while Tolbert was on the ground, then ran away. But even though Ellison had 27 stab wounds, he still had enough strength to grab a 10-pound rock that he was just about to use to smash to Albert Skull. That however is when farmer McCoy, who had thus far only been a bystander, pulled his revolver and shot Ellison in the back. That's for making fun of my name.

And yet Ellison still did not die. He wandered over to a tree and slumped down while the constable a hat field named Matt the first guy with a normal fucking name in the story I'm just Matthew Matthew hatfield I um, I developed a time machine deep inside of my home And now I'm here gazing upon the half-field McCoy beginning of the few then my name's met Well, he arrested farmer and told her McCoy as far as Bill McCoy beginning of the few then my name's Matt. Well, he arrested farmer and told her McCoy as far as Bill McCoy went. He got away because he'd run off after stabbing Ellison. Unfortunately for Bill's brother, but though, the two of them looked almost exactly alike.

So Bud McCoy was arrested for his brother's crime. Also a very old timey thing that could happen. Yeah. Now I'll probably look the same. Yeah. They're all weird. Yeah. Yeah. Now, preach your aunt's hat field, the man who'd hosted the hog trial, he was now also the justice of the peace. So he had toll-burt bud and farmer McCoy sent to Pikeville, 25 miles away over the Kentucky state line where the nearest jail was located. They didn't get far, however, before two hat fields caught up to them and

convinced the constables that the McCoy's needed to be tried and tug fork back in West Virginia because that's where the murders had taken place. This is so much chaos. It does make sense though. Sort of, but still it's like a bunch of guys show up and tell two cops, hey, those guys are going to need to come with us. And there's two cops are like, yep. Yeah. because there's a bunch of dudes who are gonna kill those cops. Yeah, I'm gonna taste the yes. Yeah, but I mean, but in one direction is a judge and in the other direction is devil ants hat field.

Yeah. And so the McCoy brothers were brought back to preacher aunt's house, which was the very place where the hog trial had taken place a couple years prior. Delicious. And we need to have our own LPN hog trial. Yeah, I want a hog trial. And we sent in this home to death. Yay.

Yay. I find this hog delicious. Yeah. Happy about it too. I like it to say the purpose. Well, after much serious debate, devil ants moved the McCoy brothers to an abandoned schoolhouse and declared that if his brother Ellison lived, the brothers McCoy would be returned to Pikeville, the Stan trial.

But he refused to say what would happen if his brother died, which of course happened to Agonizing days later. Damn, that's a big motherfucker. It's also just the dying of that time period. It's real bad. Yeah, it takes a long time. Now, in the time between the fight and Allison's death, the mother of the McCoy brothers and random McCoy's wife, Sarah McCoy, she'd traveled to the abandoned schoolhouse to beg for mercy concerning her sons.

In response, devil ants promise that he'd bring her sons back to Kentucky alive no matter what. But devil ants made no promises as to what he do to the McCoy brothers once the state line was crossed. Nancy just told me he's going to share it with the head. He'd do it all these sort of like, yeah, definitely make sure they make it took and took. He just wanted to get rid

of her. Yeah. Yeah. Just, yeah, I guess it not upset her. Yeah. I have to shoot her in that. Yeah. And so after Alison McCoy died, devilance and 20 of his henchmen, mostly his employees, marched tolbert, bud, and farmer McCoy across the state line to a sinkhole where people toss the carcasses of dead dogs. Please, where we go? I thought we were going to, oh, oh, I know where we're going. Oh, this is the saddest place in the goddamn world. Oh, this ain't good. Yeah, dead dog hole. Yeah, why are we going to dead dog hole? I've never been to dog mud Kentucky.

You think that our employees would ever allow us to march three other podcasters to a death to a death year in with eight foot around us in a cloud as we bring the smartless guys like to a place to dead dog home. Yeah. Yeah. Man, they make a talk his way out of anything. I would like to know what Mr. Arnet, I am just pleased to be next to you. I ain't gonna listen to nothing you fucking say, Arnet. Yeah. That squirrel heart mark.

You fucking tie a goddamn sock around that mother fuckers mouth because I don't want to do nothing. I don't want to hear about how he's just as upset about this as I. He's traveling. He's traveling fool you. Well included in this vigilante group was a young man named Cotton Top Mounds, who was a bastard son of the recently deceased Ellison Hatfield. Cotton Top had the intelligence of an eight-year-old and had a highly annoying laugh that irritated the other Hatfields. But he was useful because he was also incredibly violent. High body count.

He'd probably mean. Reddably violent high body count. He probably made So once the vigilante group arrived at the sinkhole in the dead of night the three McCoy brothers were blindfolded and tied to small Pawpaw trees for the firing squad to come now you're on a wait You wait You're all gonna sit here, we're gonna wait. Just hours. Cotton top being the least respected of the Hat Fields was tasked with holding a lantern next to the condemned men so the others could see where to shoot.

God damn. Oh, standing now. Well, no, we won't get you. We, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, bring it. Now daddy, we're going to have to shoot him in the head. I feel like I'm kind of close. Now get on in there. Get on. When the word ne'fire was given more than 50 shots rang out, which ripped Tolbert and Farmer McCoy to shreds.

But no one had aimed at Bud McCoy, who was still trying to convince the vigilantes that it was actually his brother Bill who would stab Dallasin run away. You don't want to shoot me, guys? You don't shoot me, guys, let's think about this for a second. He was my brother. But it actually worked. Now, it was said that devil ants wanted to spare Bud's life because they really couldn't be sure if he was telling the truth.

And he seemed to be pretty convincing. He's sitting there looking and just like, Bud's life because they really couldn't be sure if he was telling the truth. And he seemed to be pretty convincing. He's sitting there looking and he's like, as he's like, dried up. He's my brother. See? Yeah. He's my brother.

He's like, I'm blessed now. But just as the Hatfield gang was walking away, bad Jim Vance walked up to Bud and pointed a shotgun in his face. Before pulling the trigger and blasting the top of bud skull six feet behind his body. Bad gym vans declared quote, did men tell no tales. Cotton top then had his own fun emptying his guns into the three dead bodies. Yeah. Yeah, you got them. Yeah, you got them. Good job, buddy. We're gonna use those bullets. That's fine. You have his phone. We got to make it individually. These bullets are hard to come to

actually. You do have to make each one. All right. Well, you can sleep inside tonight. All right, well, you can sleep inside tonight. When the bodies were found by the other McCoy's squirrel hunt and Sam out of respect, I suppose, scooped up bud McCoy's brains with his bare hands and slid them back into his open skull. We want to leave a mess. Honestly, I want to start is squirrels get into these brains. Squirrels get into the brains. And then I mean, because they need to get mad squirrel. Yeah, yeah, squirrels get strong to get hard to the kill.

You know, you know, you want to leave a miss. Now, random McCoy immediately formed a posse when he got where that his sons had been executed, but his highly religious wife Sarah begged him not to retaliate, saying that they should let the courts take care of the hap fields. Reluctantly, Randall agreed, which was a huge mistake. See, a lot of relatives believe that if Randall had come back full force with a counterattack immediately, the feud would have ended there, because in this part of the country, during this time period, an eye for an eye was the only Principle anyone respected but as one neighbor put it

If they think they got you on the run They'll keep after you and so the Hatfields did and that's where we'll pick back up for the conclusion to our series on the Hatfields And McCoy's now we've been asked to do this series for a long time. And it's fun to do. I love this series. So I've been so much fun. This is one of those. And I, we got a lot of stuff coming up, but I'm excited where this goes, because it just gets more violent.

Mm hmm. Which I like. Oh, no, there's midnight ray. Yeah, we've barely killed anybody yet. They were getting there. We got right now. Five, right? It's five to one.

Yeah. No, five to two. Five to two. So we've killed seven people so far, and we're going to go for between five to one. Yeah, no, five to two, five to two. So we've killed seven people so far, and we're gonna go for between 12 and 24. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

So we'll get there. Yeah. Super excited. For those of you we want to announce that we are officially on sale with classy night out is going to be live in Los Angeles at the knitting factory in North Hollywood, which I'm really excited for.

I've never, we haven't done a show there. Yeah, I've never even been there, but it's on top of the federal. Yes. So if you know where the federal is, it's the top floor. December 22nd, we're going to have a good old Christmas cavalcade and we're going to make you, we're going to make you laugh a little bit and we want to make you smile. I want to make you cry to you too. I don't know. Yeah, check it out.

Just look for a classie night out at knittingfactory.com. It's a North Hollywood. It's going to be a lot of fun. We've got a lot of LPN people doing the show. Yeah. Sina Gosnavi Jackie Zabrowski. Everybody else. Yeah. Everyone that's forced into the show will be there. That's right. Yeah. And we're going to have some surprise guests. It's going to be a lot of fun. I can't wait for this fucking show. I'm glad classy night out is back. Oh, yeah. We'll be doing. I love going. I love going to classy night out. Yeah. We're having great time. Yeah, in the nitting factory fucking rocks. I'm glad there's one in LA now

Let's crazy also. I'm gonna be Next weekend. I'm gonna be in Boca, Riton, Florida. I'm doing two shows on December 8th and 9th I'm fucking going home. I'm from Boca. I'm very excited for this. I've got time. Boy last time I performed in Boca I was playing a cop and guys and dolls And so I'm so excited for the show. It's at the soul theater. I'm opening for a guy named Brian Kylie is like one of Conan's writers. He's unbelievable joke machine. So go check it out. I can't wait. I hope you all come out to the show. I love to see you there. That's going to be at the

soul theater. It's all presented by comic cure. Come check it out. That's great. Okay. Now wait. We also got a Operation Sunshine number two. It is for sale. Go and check it out at your local comic book store. We always ask you to go and check it out. I'm gonna go and check it out. That's great. K and out. We also got an Operation Sunshine number two. It is for sale. Go and check it out at your local comic book store. We always ask you to go and ask for it by name at your comic book store. It was sold out where I went. Yeah, it should be. I had to get a shipped in from another comic book store so I can get it.

So it's almost gone. So go get it now. Please, please, we worked hard on it. And I think it's really, I really love it. And the response has been really beautiful. when's number three come out next month Okay, nice Everyone you know about these comic book stories you can put your name in and the hold one for you That's what Eddie just learned. Yeah, you just learned it's called a pull list. Oh, pull list

Yeah, I'm doing this whole thing a pull box. I mean one of the two. Yeah, pull box is also an incredible bar in the tug belt Pull box is also an incredible bar in the tug belt Yeah, it's right next to pull box I'm going into pretending like I don't know you and shit just be like hey, I hear these guys are flimmy There are something new and honestly, I got a check it out for myself And don't forget to check out all the shows on twitch.tv slash LPN TV. Yes, next week we got your tears of clon. We back no dogs. Spaces come back on Monday. No dogs in space is every two weeks Monday at 6 p.m.

CCC at 6 p.m. PST. Our next one is going to be on Monday, December 4th. So tune in twitch.tv slash LPN TV for that one. I love it and come check out. We're gonna do good put on Thursday next week. I'm really excited. I got new material for that. And Wednesday's gonna be brighter side at 5 p.m. So we're all on that. We're up in that fucking or shit.

And look at my calendar, the Pasadena City College flea markets on Sunday. Cool. Oh, there you go. Go have a nice time. Go have it. Bring your Subaru out back. I think you get 20% off.

Here's one other thing. Oh, do we set it here? We set it on the stream, but I will say it here again. So open lines, we're not gonna be doing open lines because we are shifting to focusing on a new show. So just for people that are confusion about the Series XM app, I mean, people asking me, and honestly, I don't know the answer yet.

So I will let you know, as soon as we know, where the new project is going to live. Yes. You know the fun? That's so much fun. You guys like that actual, that's information that you can't use. Yeah, there you go. It doesn't help.

Almost, yeah, it's almost like you gave no information at all. But I, that's all that I have. And isn't that what the show is all about? Hey. Why change now? I gotta get so, can we get out of here? You're a parallel center. Hell game.

Hell ham. Yes. Or ham ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham I gotta get some. Can we get out of here? Hell yeah! Hell yeah! Hell yeah! Yes! Or ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham ham supporting them. For more shows like the one you just listened to, go to lastpodcastnetwork.com.