by Dean King
On Friday, January 6, Crazy Jim’s wife, Mary, who had joined them in camp, roasted two raccoons that Crazy Jim and Cap had shot for their supper. Weary of being in the woods, the three of them set out for Cap’s place the next day, climbing Thacker Mountain with Mary out front as a scout. After crossing a ridge not far from the Vances’ cabin, Mary looked down on the sight they had dreaded: a posse was coming up the other side of the mountain on horses.
She turned and shouted: “Here they come!”12
“How many?” Crazy Jim called back.
“About forty, I reckon.”
Bad Frank and his men spurred their horses up the steep slope. Bad Frank led the way; behind him was Yates, and then the ever-observant Squirrel Huntin’ Sam. “Frank, I see two men,” he warned. “One has a gun.”13
In the strange interval as the horses scrambled up the hillside—an eternity and no time at all—Crazy Jim, who was ill from eating too much rich raccoon meat, told Cap that he was not going to run. He would stand and fight it out, but he said Cap should get away as soon as he could.
As the riders rushed past Mary on her way down, Crazy Jim waved his hand and shouted: “Halt!” And then, “Rally around the point, boys!” He hid behind some brush with Cap, and they began to shoot at the posse. Crazy Jim’s orders were a bluff, of course; there were no boys to rally, but the posse took cover. Yates dove behind a fallen oak and, according to Squirrel Huntin’ Sam, did not come out until the fight was over. (Sam would later return to the oak and joke to his comrades, “This here’s a Pinkerton wall. If you wanna be safe, get behind this.”) As the rest of the posse began to fan out, Cap had his gun shot out of his hand. Realizing that to stay would be useless, he picked up his rifle and made a break for it, taking a flesh wound in the back on the way. Bullets winged through the woods as he ran, dodging from one tree to the next, making his way up a ridge between Grapevine and Pigeon creeks.14
Except for a sixteen-shot repeating rifle, .45- and .38-caliber revolvers, and a haversack full of loaded cartridges, Crazy Jim was alone on the narrow ridge. He squatted behind a locust stump and in front of a boulder that marked the center of the Hatfields’ backwoods haven. From there, a man who still had sap in his legs could peel off down any of half a dozen hollows and disappear into the dense wilderness. In each of these hollows, Crazy Jim could find a friend who would not hesitate to pick up his gun and use it against an intruder if for no other reason than he knew the one and not the other. But Crazy Jim was feeling old, cramped in the stomach, and unwilling to run.15 Instead, he raised his gun to his shoulder and took aim at the man leading the charge—Bad Frank. If he could hit his mark, the others might lose their gumption, too.
Just as Crazy Jim squeezed the trigger, Bad Frank dropped to the ground, dodging a bullet that might have reshaped local history. Squirrel Huntin’ Sam thought he had been hit and killed, but Bad Frank leaped to his feet again, fired his gun, and dashed to an oak tree for cover. Before he could get there, Crazy Jim fired again but missed.16
Bad Frank took a breath, peered around the tree to return fire, and realized that the barrel of Crazy Jim’s gun was already trained on him. He pulled his head back just in time to keep it from being drilled by a West Virginia bullet, which instead spat bark in his face. He fired his gun at Crazy Jim’s stump. The shot pierced the rotting wood and hit Crazy Jim’s cartridge belt, knocking him off his feet. Now he was exposed. Before he could recover, Bad Frank pumped in a fresh cartridge and shot him through the body. Crazy Jim crawled behind a log, and Bad Frank ran forward.
Crazy Jim might also have been hit by some of the other men, who had moved to the left and the right.17 In any case, he was mortally wounded, but not yet dead. With both his hands, Crazy Jim—the best pistol shot in Logan County—aimed at Bad Frank. While dying was bad, it could be a bit less so.
But then his eyes jittered and rolled as his body briefly convulsed. In that moment, Bad Frank hit the earth with his rifle out front. Crazy Jim regained control, lifted his head, and took aim. The barrel of Bad Frank’s Winchester, a Model 1886 .45-90 lever-action used for felling big game, twitched up and locked on. Both men squeezed their triggers. Crazy Jim’s hat flew ten feet above his head, like a cap tossed in victory. Some of his brains were inside it.18
Shang Ferrell looked at the dead man and said, “He’ll burn no more houses.” The men all stared at Ferrell. None of them had any idea that Jim Vance was even involved in the house burning (let alone that he had led it). They had really wanted Cap. If Crazy Jim had not shot at them, they would have left him alone.19
CAP SURFACED AT HOG FLOYD’S place. He borrowed a horse and did not even saddle it before racing off to warn his father of the danger. After he rode into camp and told his story, Devil Anse immediately assembled his men. They sketched out plans to lure the posse into an ambush and kill Bad Frank. Then they hurried off to see if Crazy Jim was still holding out. They found only his semi-headless corpse, Phillips and his men gone.
The death of Crazy Jim—one of the flintiest and most feared of the Hatfields—was a hard blow to the clan. Family members did not want the public to attend the funeral, and they did not want his grave to be vandalized, so they buried him in a secret place in Thacker Hollow.20
Now emboldened, Bad Frank and his men crossed back into Kentucky, but only to regroup. The next night, they returned for more. This time they stormed up Beech Creek in midday to Wall’s place. They leaped the fence on their horses and charged the house. Hearing what he thought was a ruckus among the cows, Wall ran to the door to see what was the matter and found a lot more than he had bargained for.
Looking up the length of a Winchester barrel, he saw a grimacing Big Jim McCoy. Wall raised his hands. Bad Frank’s posse entered the house and found Doc Mahon, who was married to Wall’s daughter Sarah, and his brother Sam, both also wanted for the murder of the McCoy brothers.21
Part of the posse, led by Squirrel Huntin’ Sam, Randall, and two other McCoys, went after Andy Varney, who lived on the West Virginia side of the Tug just above the mouth of Knox Creek. Varney saw them first and ran for it. Leaving Randall behind at the cabin, Sam and his two cousins tracked Varney up a hill. When Sam, overheated, paused to take off his overcoat, he heard a voice coming from the bushes. It was Varney. “I’ll surrender. I’ve got nothing but a pipe,” he said. “You can have it if you want it.”
Sam—the most level-headed and fair-minded of the lot, at least according to his autobiography—shook hands with Varney and said, “I ain’t over here to kill people and burn houses. The Hatfields never harmed me nor me them. I am sorry this has all happened. You listen to me and do as I say and you be safe.”
They went back to Varney’s cabin. When Randall saw Varney, the rage within him rose, and he leveled his rifle on him. But Sam caught the gun in his hand and looked Randall in the eye. “Is this the way you are going to carry on?” he asked. “You promised you would listen to me.” Randall held his gun tight. “Now tell me, are you going to do as promised?” Sam asked. “If not say so, and I’ll get on my mare and ride for home.”
“Well, by goddamn, I reckon you’ll have your own way,” Randall muttered, lowering his gun.22
The two groups reconvened at Wall’s and wrapped up the raid by apprehending Plyant Mahon and L. D. McCoy. Their success must have put them in high spirits because at one point, Varney tried to escape and instead of shooting him, they simply ran him down and dragged him back.
Bad Frank and his posse managed to hustle their six prisoners to Pikeville on January 12. The Pike County sheriff served them with warrants of arrest and delivered them to the jailer, Abner Justice. Now nine of the twenty-three wanted men had been captured, even if by illegal means, and were in the Pike County jail awaiting trial for the murder of the McCoy brothers.23
By the time the men reached Pikeville, Bad Frank’s exploits were already being spun into legend. No sooner had “the last sad rites of the late butchery” taken place, said a Catlettsburg newspaper, than t
he McCoys’ posse set out “for the purpose of annihilating the gang.” The newspaper also reported that Jim Vance, who had “killed several men in the McCoy neighborhood,” had been shot seven times and that Johnse Hatfield and Tom Mitchell had been killed along with him, which would have made interesting reading for the latter two—had they been able to read—since they were alive and hiding out in the woods. In fact, Johnse was preparing to set off for Colorado, leaving Nancy and the family behind to await his return. Nancy, however, would turn out to have other ideas.24
ON THE SAME DAY THAT Bad Frank landed his prisoners in the Pikeville jail, the Schoolhouse Blizzard struck Nebraska and Minnesota and the Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho territories. Like the Hatfields’ New Year’s Day attack, the storm came furtively and did its damage ruthlessly. In strong winds and powdery snow, but only moderate temperatures, locals set about their chores, rode to town, or walked to school. When the total whiteout came, it took them by surprise. Five hundred people, many of them schoolchildren on their way home, froze to death.
However, in the Big Sandy Valley there had been little snowfall that year, and the usual winter rise of the Ohio had not occurred. Four of the previous six years had seen early winter precipitation, a sudden thaw, and heavy spring rain, but this year there was little hope of a spring freshet, which disgruntled the lumbermen. They would have to work their timber down to the riverside using flumes and sleds, muscles and sweat, and hope for a modest rise of the water level, a foot or two, in April to float their rafts down to the mills.25
During these raw winter months, the chill between the West Virginia and Kentucky capitals deepened. Having sent the requested affidavits to Governor Wilson in October, Governor Buckner believed that he had complied with all the necessary legalities to have the fugitives sent to Kentucky to stand trial. Not only had that not happened, but these same men had committed new atrocities. Frustrated, Buckner wrote Wilson again, asking if “there was then anything which prevented the rendition of the criminals?”26
Wilson now believed there was. His state had been invaded, and one of its citizens murdered. In all, nine men had been illegally arrested, kidnapped, and forcefully removed from the state. His fellow West Virginians were not going to let him forget these facts. On January 16, John B. Floyd told the Wheeling Register that the Hatfields “knew nothing of the burning of McCoy’s house and the killing of his son and daughter.” Like Squirrel Huntin’ Sam, he claimed that Randall McCoy was riding with Frank Phillips, a point that Governor Buckner would dispute with Governor Wilson in a January 30 letter, saying, “Old Randolph McCoy was not with this raiding party… but was at that time in Pikeville, Kentucky, as the citizens of that place will all testify.” Floyd reported that Shang Ferrell and other men whom they forced to guide them said that Randall “intended to kill Cap, cut a slice of meat from his body and eat it.”
“The people of Logan County,” Floyd declared, “are alarmed and indignant.”27
Chapter 16
Bad Frank and the Battle of Grapevine Creek
January 18, 1888
In the days following Bad Frank’s West Virginia raids, newspaper accounts said that the Hatfields had sent word that they planned to burn Pikeville and rescue their comrades locked up there. Perry Cline was ready. His jail was built of solid brick and held its fourteen prisoners—nine of them of the accused Hatfield faction—in iron cages. Its three guards, armed with Winchesters and revolvers, made sure the inmates remained secure. At night, pickets posted in all directions guarded the town.1
Meanwhile, Bad Frank, who weighed no more than 135 pounds but whose stature was growing by the day, finalized his plans for a third raid into West Virginia. He was not, as the Courier-Journal would erroneously report, “related by blood to the Hatfields,” but a little more of their blood on his hands would have suited him just fine. This time, on January 16, thirty-three riders rumbled out of Pikeville. They again included a number of McCoys—namely, Big Jim, his brother Sam, and their cousins Bud and Lark. The latter, at age thirty-one, now had a temper that matched his rage over the murder of his father, Harmon. Two days after setting out, they roared across the Tug River into West Virginia, opposite Peter Creek, and rode down along the riverbank toward the mouth of Grapevine Creek, where Cap lived.2
This time, Bad Frank would not surprise anyone. A patrol that Wall, who was in jail, would call “lawfully formed by the West Virginians to keep the Pike County people out” waited in front of Cap’s house. It was composed of Devil Anse, Cap, and nine others, a group one contemporary journalist referred to as the Logan Regulators, a holdover from Civil War times. One of the nine was Charlie Harrison, a twenty-two-year-old distant cousin of Devil Anse’s from Tazewell County, Virginia. Wiry, strong, woods-smart, with piercing blue eyes later described as “beady,” he was not the youngest of the bunch. That honor belonged to Charley Gillespie, the dark-haired teenager who had participated in the New Year’s Day raid and who was also originally from Tazewell County. French Ellis, who was a neighbor of Cap’s, was there, as were two lawmen, the constable John Thompson and a special deputy, Bill Dempsey. Thompson had arrest warrants for Bad Frank and his men for the killing of Jim Vance. There was also an emissary sent by Governor Wilson to ascertain the truth behind the feud, William Floyd, brother of John B. A dusting of snow covered the frozen ground, and the wind cut like a scythe. Though the men longed to be inside by the fireplace, they could not keep watch from a windowless cabin. For warmth, corn liquor would have to suffice.3
Harrison sat on his horse among cousins and friends. Someone produced a jar of moonshine and passed it around. “It’s the best you ever laid your lips to,” one of them said. “It’s a dad burn good thing to have on a day like this.”
“Warms your blood a little so’s you won’t freeze stiff as a polecat on your horse,” joked another. Then the conversation came to a dead halt.4
The Kentucky band would also be cast in Civil War terms. The Wheeling Intelligencer reported: “The Peter Creek Guards, twenty strong, have joined the capturing party, which now numbers over forty, and are in hot pursuit of the Hatfields.”5 Pacing a single-file line of riders on a narrow road as they neared Grapevine Creek was Big Jim McCoy. Carrying the rifle that Cal had used the night he was killed, he let his testy brown-and-white mare run, and she pulled ahead by about a quarter of a mile. When he rounded a spur of the mountain, Big Jim found himself riding straight at a dozen squinting, moonshine-furnaced West Virginians.
Squirrel Huntin’ Sam said that the Hatfields, having been warned of the posse’s approach, had started up Grapevine Creek and were in the process of crossing it when Big Jim came around the bend. Big Jim saw them and jerked the reins back, but he was already in gunshot range. As the Hatfields began to shoot, Big Jim’s mare reared, whinnying and scissoring her legs in the air. Her frantic gyrations sent Big Jim into involuntary evasive maneuvers and may well have saved his life.
The Hatfields knew that he was not alone. As they fired, they ran for cover behind a fence. Amid the barrage of bullets, Big Jim leaped off his mount. He laid Cal’s rifle on the ground, flung his overcoat onto his saddle, and let the horse go. He grabbed the rifle and found cover at the corner of a stone wall. Cal’s weapon, which he always carried now, was a visceral reminder of why he was here, but more than anything, he sought vengeance for his sister Alifair. A man of deep religious faith, he was sure that the Hatfields would pay for their sins, and he had no qualms about being a messenger of the Lord.
Aiming over the wall, Big Jim hit a man with his first shot. The special deputy, Dempsey, fell next to Harrison as the cold air became luminous with gun smoke. Harmon McCoy’s son Bud was the next Kentuckian to round the bend, and he took a bullet in his shoulder. The rest of Bad Frank’s contingent dismounted, hastily secured their horses to pawpaw trees, and, almost in one motion, scurried for cover behind the stone wall. Some of the horses were shot; others were spooked, broke free, and galloped off, away from the crackling gunfire. Seeing
the stampede, Devil Anse decided to maneuver his men lower down Grapevine Creek in order to cut off and trap the McCoys. However, before the Hatfields could get there, Bad Frank’s men ran down their horses.6
Harmon McCoy’s son Bud. (West Virginia State Archives)
The two sides fired on each other for, by one estimate, more than two hours. When they started, Joe Glenn, Cap’s five-year-old stepson, who was staying with his grandparents Larkin and Emma Smith, ran outside to see the shooting. The Smiths knew who the attackers were because they had bivouacked on their property the night before they killed Jim Vance. Joe’s granny, a Hatfield, quickly retrieved the boy and barred the door.7
After the initial strikes, the outnumbered Hatfields took the worst of it. Already missing fingers, Mitchell was shot in the side. Indian was drilled in the thigh. A man named Lee White was hit three times.
Just who had the better arms in the battle is a matter of dispute as each side subsequently tried to downplay their weaponry. “The Hatfields fought with the best rifles that money could procure, heavy caliber Colts and Winchester rifles,” wrote journalist Charles Mutzenberg. “The Kentuckians were armed less perfectly, about half of them using rifles and shotguns of the old pattern.” According to him, only Bad Frank and two others had repeating rifles, which accounted for the Kentuckians’ “heavy losses in horses and wounded men.”8
Cap’s son Coleman disagreed, saying: “Anse, Cap, and a few other of the Hatfields were armed with .45 caliber one-shot cartridge Spencer rifles. The remainder of the Hatfield side had only cap-lock squirrel rifles and such other muzzle-loading weapons as had been handed down from the Civil War.” He claimed that the McCoys used Winchester repeating rifles bought from the riverboats that plied the Levisa Fork to Pikeville.9