Come and listen to my story
Of fair Rosanna McCoy.
She loved young Jonse Hatfield,
Old Devil Anse’s boy.
But the McCoys and Hatfields
Had long engaged in strife,
And never the son of a Hatfield
Should take a McCoy to wife.
But when they met each other,
On Blackberry Creek, they say,
She was riding behind her brother,
When Jonse came along that way.
“Who is that handsome fellow?”
She asked young Tolbert McCoy.
Said he, “Turn your head, sister.
That’s Devil Anse’s boy.”
But somehow they met each other,
And it grieved the Hatfields sore;
While Randall, the young girl’s father,
Turned his daughter from the door.
It was down at old Aunt Betty’s
They were courting one night, they say,
When down came Rosanna’s brothers
And took young Jonse away.
Rosanna’s heart was heavy,
For she hoped to be his wife,
And well she knew her brothers
Would take his precious life.
She ran to a nearby pasture
And catching a horse by the mane,
She mounted and rode like a soldier,
With neither saddle nor rein.
Her golden hair streamed behind her,
Her eyes were wild and bright,
As she urged her swift steed forward
And galloped away in the night.
Straight to the Hatfields’ stronghold,
She rode so fearless and brave,
To tell them that Jonse was in danger
And beg them his life to save.
And the Hatfields rode in a body.
They saved young Jonse’s life;
But never, they said, a Hatfield
Should take a McCoy to wife.
But the feud is long forgotten
And time has healed the sting,
As little Bud and Melissy
This song of their kinsmen sing.
No longer it is forbidden
That a fair-haired young McCoy
Shall love her dark-eyed neighbor
Or marry a Hatfield boy.
And the people still remember,
Though she never became his bride,
The love of these young people
And Rosanna’s midnight ride.
—Coby Preston
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