were not, now that he knew the assassins of his brothers, it would be utter folly to leave such a dangerous witness alive to tell the story. “Dead men tell no tales,” cries one of the heartless wretches, and impatient of the useless delay, approaches the boy and with a double charge of buckshot blows off his head.

The entire band then fires a farewell volley into the bodies of the dead.

We said “the entire band.” This is not correct. For one of the Hatfields had remained on the other side of the river. “The Bible condemns murder,” he had said. But this good man volunteered to stand guard and prevent any interference or interruption of the butchery.

The foul deed accomplished, the murderers recrossed the river and entered West Virginia. Then Val Hatfield, the justice of the peace, this officer of the law, with solemn formality administered to the murderers the oath never to betray the name of a member of the band even should death stare him in the face. What is an oath to such depraved creatures? There, standing on the banks of the river, surrounded by that throng of midnight assassins, in sight of the spot that bore the frightful evidences of the dastardly work, Val Hatfield commanded them to raise their bloody hands to heaven. Each and all solemnly swore to stand by each other, never to reveal the secret of that night’s work, asking God to witness their oath. What supreme blasphemy!

After their return to West Virginia, parties who saw them and noted they were without the prisoners, asked what had become of them. Val Hatfield replied with a smile that they had “sent them back to Kentucky to stand the civil law.”

As soon as the assassination became known, the brothers and relatives of the dead untied the torn and mangled bodies, placed them in a sled and conveyed them to their home.

Have we exaggerated in the telling of this story? Let us see. Years afterwards some of the assassins were brought to trial. During the hearing of the case against Val Hatfield, the West Virginia justice of the peace, Mrs. Sarah McCoy, the mother of the slain brothers, testified:—

“I am the mother of Phamer, Tolbert and young Randolph McCoy. They are dead. They were killed on the night of August 9th, 1882. I saw them on the Monday before that, at Floyd Hatfield’s, while they were under arrest. The next time I saw them was over on Mate Creek, in Logan County, West Virginia, at a schoolhouse. When I got there, Val Hatfield was sitting by them with a shotgun across his lap. I was talking, praying and crying for my boys. While over at the mouth of Mate Creek I heard Val Hatfield say that if Ellison Hatfield died, he would shoot the boys full of holes. Tolbert was shot twice in the head and three or four times in the body. Phamer was shot in the head and ten or eleven times in the body, maybe more. The top of one side of the little boy’s head was shot off. He was down on his knees, hanging to the bushes when they found him. Tolbert had one arm over his face. Tolbert was 31, Phamer 19 and Randall 15 years old. They were hauled home on a sled and buried in one coffin.

“When Val Hatfield was sitting by them with a double barreled shotgun in his lap, the boys were lying on something on the floor, tied together with a rope. I fell on my knees and began praying and begging and crying for my children. Some one said there was no use of that, to shut up. Then some one came in and said that my husband was on the way with a large party to rescue his sons. I told them that there was nothing of it. They said for us to leave. Tolbert’s wife was with me. They said that if they were interfered with my boys would be the first to die.”[5]

The day following the murder the coroner of the district, also a Hatfield, held an inquest in which the jury reported a verdict to the effect that the three McCoy brothers had been shot and killed at the hands of persons unknown.

In affairs of this kind, where many men are engaged, men whose acts prove them without honor, without respect for law, man or God, truth comes to light in spite of oaths to reveal nothing. The parties had been seen with their prisoners by many people and had been seen returning to West Virginia without them. Neighbors heard the shots fired; saw the band of cutthroats, armed to the teeth, led by the brothers of Ellison Hatfield, the dead man. Aside from that, Mrs. McCoy and Tolbert McCoy’s wife had recognized and knew personally all of the men that guarded the boys at the schoolhouse. They had heard the threats repeated time and again that if Ellison Hatfield died, the boys would be murdered. The officers who had at first arrested them and taken charge of them, testified that at the house of the Reverend Hatfield’s the boys were tied, and that then they, the officers, were informed by Devil Anse, Val and Cap Hatfield, to “vamoose.” Twenty-three of the Hatfield clan were indicted in the Pike Circuit Court (Kentucky), each one charged with three murders. The indictments were returned into Court on the 14th day of September, 1882, but none of them was tried until seven years later.

Although heavy rewards were offered for the apprehension of the murderers, not until years after the crime was it that an actor stepped upon the scene whose intrepidity and shrewdness finally led to the undoing of many of the murder clan. However, through the law’s delay, many other horrible outrages followed this one, and many lives were lost before an end was put to bloodshed.

Much speculation was indulged in, after the assassination of August 9th, why old man Randolph McCoy had made no attempt to rescue his sons. The explanation is simple. When he left them on the morning following the fight they were in charge of Kentucky officers and guarded. When turned back by Val and Elias Hatfield, he was told by these men that the boys should have an examining trial in the magisterial district in which the fight had taken place, that the witnesses for both the State and the defence would be more easily accessible there than if the trial were had at Pikeville many miles away. At the county seat McCoy conferred with lawyers and engaged them in the defence of his sons for the killing of Ellison Hatfield, should he die. He could not believe that Val Hatfield, a sworn officer of the law, would so far forget and violate his solemn oath of office so to condone or aid or to participate in such a wholesale butchery. Aside from this, the arresting officers, also Hatfields, would see to the safety of the prisoners, as it was their duty to do. He feared, too, that interference might endanger the safety of the sons and thought it best to remain passive. He placed his trust in the law. We have seen the result.

After the indictment of the Hatfields they maintained their armed organization under the leadership of Devil Anse and “Cap,” his son. Devil Anse was a man of fine physique, tall and muscular, as were his sons, Johns and Cap. Randolph McCoy described Cap as “six feet of devil and 180 pounds of hell!” Neither of these men suggested the outlaw and the desperado. All of them possessed regular features, but the strong jaws, the rectilinear foreheads with angular, knotty protuberances denoted according to the physiognomist firm, harsh, oppressive activity. In their intercourse with friends they exhibited a jovial disposition and their eyes beamed kindly. But once aroused to anger there took place an instant metamorphosis. At such times Anse Hatfield justified the sobriquet “Devil” Anse.