Hatfield, William Anderson

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McCoy, Perry & Anse Hatfield USNavy news 240116HMcCFeud

20240119GHLn-
Hatfield and McCoy Feud
Favorites · January 16 2024

· Debbie Long Oberst, a dear friend of the Hatfield and McCoy Feud page, recently submitted this newspaper clipping from 1902, which depicts two US Navy sailors,
Perry McCoy (closely related to Ran’l Hatfield) and
Anse "Ansie" Hatfield (the son of Johnse Hatfield, and grandson of Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield).

Below are excerpts from an adjoining article (which contains a few details the journalist likely concocted), as published in the Inter Ocean, (Chicago,Illinois), Sun., Nov. 2, 1902.

***
BOYS FORGET OLD FAMILY FEUD AND JOIN THE NAVY TOGETHER

PHILADELPHIA, PA - Two boys, who at birth became principals in one of the bitterest feuds of the most lawless mountains the South has ever known, and whose families for a decade have been involved in a merciless war, and have refused their hereditary hatred to become comrades in Uncle Sam's Navy.

Perry McCoy and Anse Hatfield, [immediate descendants of rival family feudists] according to the code their families cherish, should be seeking each other with guns or knives in the mountains around the West Virginia and Kentucky boundaries, instead of having their hammocks slung side by side on the training ship, Minneapolis, at League Island Navy Yard here.

For twenty years, at least, the McCoys and the Hatfields have ignored all law in order that they might wipe each other off the face of the earth - but these two, Perry and Anse, are the first of their clan to swear their allegiance to the government.

In the past, whenever a Hatfield met a McCoy, there was sure to be a fight. Although no immediate grievance was at hand, there were always old grudges enough to awaken the fires of hatred in the bosoms of both parties.

Knives, pistols, and guns were pulled out on all occasions; murders, raids, and even pitched battles took place without apparent provocation. For so deadly was the hate of a McCoy for a Hatfield, and a Hatfield for a McCoy, that neither lost an opportunity to kill off as many members of the opposing faction as possible.

Where League Island Navy Yard isn’t in close proximity to the homes of either, a militia would be called out if a McCoy and a Hatfield approached each other [with evil intent] as closely as do these young sailors.

For, back home, the McCoys must stay within their Kentucky line, and the Hatfield's inside the West Virginia. Such is one of the hard and fast rules of comity between the two states. When violated, death ensues. The hatred has been taught them from childhood. Each was reared in the knowledge that the other was his most bitter enemy, and that to kill him by fair means or foul was fully justifiable under any circumstances.

Brought up under these principles, it is all the more remarkable that these two young men - drifting together - did not seek each other's destruction from the beginning. Had their families foreseen the forces at work in bringing about this strange state of affairs, they would never have permitted the friendship to spring up, so implacable is their hatred.

Perry McCoy and Anse Hatfield knew all these things; but, for all that, they have developed a strong friendship … In the semi-civilization of their mountain homes, each young man was trained for a career as a civil engineer. They went to work for the Coal and Coke Company engaged in opening up the mineral resources of the wild region. As fellow workmen, they were forced to meet with friendliness, and soon this feeling became sincere instead of artificial.

It did not take long for them to find out that they had a common love of adventure, and in talking over what they would like best to do, they made up their minds to enlist together in the navy.

So they signed for four years service as sailors a few weeks ago at Huntington, Kentucky, and a week later became protege of Gunner Morgan, aboard the Minneapolis at League Island Navy Yard. And, in the short time they have been there, the boys have made wonderful progress.

Anyone not familiar with their story would hardly believe that they were trained in childhood to be enemies as men, for they are now inseparable companions when not learning the art of the sailor trade.

“I’d do anything for Anse," McCoy said, "and I know I could depend upon him were I in trouble. We're fast friends now. Anse's mother was my father's sister. So, once in a very great while, there has been a friendly feeling in our families, but, at the same time, that was not thought of when Anse's uncle wished to kill my father.”

“If he goes back to his home in Mingo County, West Virginia, and I go back to mine in Kentucky, something may change our feelings, for he's a Hatfield, you know, and I, a McCoy."

The now famous Hatfield-McCoy feud was all caused by an argument over an ordinary grisly razor-back hog, in fact, not a full fledged porcine, but simply a shorte.

According to tradition, it was a McCoy shorte and Randolph McCoy charged Floyd Hatfield with having beguiled it into his own domains. In the lawsuit that followed McCoy lost, and from that moment war was on-a war persistently pursued in the wild and rugged regions of West Virginia and Kentucky, and which has cost nobody knows how many lives and what number of maimed …

No serious outbreak occurred after this until Ellison Hatfield and Talbot McCoy got mixed up in a fist fight one day; but the encounter immediately degenerated into a knife scrimmage, in which young Hatfield received twenty-seven wounds. The Hatfield's were in the majority in the crowd and they arrested Talbot, "Farmer," and Randolph McCoy Jr., holding them to await the result of Ellison's twenty-seven wounds. Ellison died and the three McCoy boys were promptly taken out, tied to trees, and shot to death.

By this time, all recollection of the origin of the disputes - the razor back had been forgotten and the Hatfield's and McCoys ere adding up one continuous series of fights to make their war-to-the-death allience justifiable.

Not long ago this Jeff McCoy, a man who had never engaged in any of the feuds, was lured to a cabin by some Hatfields. Here, scenting danger, he made his escape, was followed, swam a river, and would have made his retreat good had not a bullet from the rifle of old "Cap” Hatfield caught him in the back and killed him just as he was rising from the water on the opposite shore of the stream.

On another occasion, one of the McCoys houses was burned down and a little girl shot to death. The McCoys also made frequent raids into the "enemy's country." Once they killed a man named Dempsey, and another called Vance just because they were sympathizers with the Hatfields. During all this time the young folks often fell in love with one another, and wanted to wed. But, in most cases, instead of marriage, murder ensured.

At last the strife became so fierce that the officials of the two states forced the families to agree to separate themselves within the boundary line. The agreement has been hard to maintain, however, because the warring families, living in the passes at an elevation of from 1,500 to 2,000 feet, are practically beyond the rule of the law. The affairs of the Hatfields and McCoys are too numerous to mention.

Scarcely a year passes in which one or more members of each family does not succumb to the deadly "forty-four."

The agreement of the two hostile families to keep within their separate boundaries may have borne its first fruits in the reconciliation between Perry and Anse Hatfield. It is said that the worst enemies make the best and stanchest friends, an axiom which may come true in their case.

However that may be, it is certain that these two young men, whose families once vowed eternal hatred and war to the knife, are now bosom companions, and who knows but that their mutual conciliation may be the means of putting a permanent quietus on the bloodiest family feud ever known in the United States.

***

Thank you, Debbie Long Oberst, for your submission. See less
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Carolyn Heart
Awesome!!
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Rita Gibson
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing!??????
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Cj Fife
Is this the time Anse saved a McCoys life was in the service?
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Sue Black
Shannon Siedlik. Chris Siedlik
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