Hatfields & McCoys, Revisited

I am sure that many intelligent readers of feud books wonder, as I did for several decades, why people believe the cartoonish feud yarns.

You may have heard this story in its more popular version, which has turtles instead of rocks, but the earliest version discovered (1838) goes like this...

As this series is proving, much of the feud story is illogical, impossible or downright ludicrous. A surprising amount of it is also in clear conflict with official public records.

From time to time someone will ask me, perhaps only half seriously, who won the Hatfield-McCoy feud. Given the way we think of feuds, as mighty struggles between two equal, or nearly equal, clans, it’s a legitimate question. So let’s have at it.