Hillbilly Hell: The Hatfield and McCoy Feud Gets Worse
On Election Day in 1882, Devil Anse’s brother Ellison drank too much and got into a fight over a small debt for a fiddle. Three of Ole Ran’l’s sons stabbed Ellison 26 times. Hatfields pursued the McCoy boys and captured them. Ellison died, and so did the McCoy boys, tied to a bush and shot to death. Perry Cline, a lawyer who married a McCoy, contacted the Kentucky governor about extraditing the Hatfields from West Virginia. Cline has his own problems with the Hatfields, having lost 5,000 acres of land to them in a lawsuit. Kentucky governor Simon Bolivar Buckner made the request, but West Virginia governor E.W. Wilson refused. The Hatfield and McCoy feud almost caused an armed battle between the states. The Hatfields wanted to end things – and the McCoys – finally. In 1888, they planned an ambush of the McCoy family.