2. The Pig That Triggered the Feud
In 1878, a McCoy accused a Hatfield of stealing a hog. The Hatfield was acquitted, but one of the witnesses who took his side was murdered by the McCoys in retaliation soon thereafter. Tensions increased in 1880, when Devil Anse Hatfield’s son impregnated Old Ran’l McCoy’s daughter. Then in 1882, Devil Anse’s brother was mortally wounded in a brawl with three McCoys over a small debt owed on a fiddle. The Hatfields retaliated with the capture and execution of three McCoys. That was when things exploded into a prolonged back-forth vendetta.
Things got bad not just for the immediate clans involved, but for outsiders, who felt the ripple effect of the feud. At times, the beef between the two families threatened to turn into a war between the states of Kentucky and West Virginia. By 1890 the Hatfields, who had seriously gone overboard in the brutalities during the course of the vendetta, had been reduced to homeless hunted fugitives. Finally, four of them, plus their accomplices, were arrested and indicted for one particularly heinous atrocity.
