About ten days after the raid of January 8th, which had resulted in the killing of Vance, Phillips suddenly appeared on Grapeville Creek, where he encountered the Hatfields in force. A severe battle immediately developed.
The Kentuckians outnumbered the West Virginia outlaws. The latter, however, were on foot and had the advantage of position from the start. From it they fired upon Phillips with telling effect, killing and wounding many horses with the first volley. These, maddened with pain and frightened by the sudden fire, reared and plunged and threw the column into confusion. The keen eyes of Frank Phillips cast about for a spot of vantage and discovered a stone fence a few hundred yards away, affording a strong position. With his accustomed quickness of determining an action, he prepared to seize it. The command was given to dismount all those yet mounted. Bending their heads to the bullets, they rushed on and over and behind the stone wall. Only one of their number had dropped in the essay. Another assisted him to his feet, and all reached the wall in safety.
Now the tables were turned. Volley upon volley was fired into the ambushed Hatfields with the result that after two hours and fifteen minutes of long range fighting the outlaws retreated, taking along their many wounded, but leaving William Dempsey dead on the field.
In this battle the Hatfields fought with the best rifles that money could procure, heavy calibre Colts and Winchester rifles. The Kentuckians were armed less perfectly, about half of them using rifles and shotguns of the old pattern. Phillips and two others, only, fought with repeating rifles. It was due to this superiority in armament that the Kentuckians suffered such heavy losses in horses and wounded men.
Among the most severely injured was Bud McCoy. Among the Hatfield wounded was Tom Mitchell, shot in the side; “Indian” Hatfield, wounded in the thigh; Lee White, shot three times. Many minor casualties occurred.
The battle of Grape Vine Creek was the last serious fight between the Hatfield outlaws and the Kentucky officers, although sporadic killings occurred at frequent intervals.
In the several forays made by Frank Phillips and his party nine of the outlaws were captured and landed in jail at Pikeville.
In the meantime the quarrel between the two governors continued. The correspondence between them was exceedingly pithy and acrimonious. We shall quote one or two letters from Governor Buckner of Kentucky to Governor Wilson of West Virginia, which will fully explain the attitudes taken by these two gentlemen in this matter.
Commonwealth of Kentucky
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT
Frankfort, Ky., January 30th, 1888.
His Excellency, E. W. Wilson,
Governor of West Virginia.On the tenth day of September last, in the discharge of what I conceived to be my duty as Governor of this Commonwealth, I issued a requisition upon your Excellency for the rendition of Anderson Hatfield and others, charged by indictment with wilful murder committed in Pike County, Kentucky, on the 9th day of August, 1882. On the 30th of September, 1887, said requisition was returned to me with a letter from your Excellency, calling my attention to a law of West Virginia, a copy of which you were kind enough to enclose, and which you seemed to think prevented a compliance on your part with my demand, until it should be accompanied by the affidavit indicated in the law above referred to. Without then stopping to discuss the correctness of your construction of the law in question, or its validity, even conceding your construction to be correct, the desired affidavit having been obtained was attached to said requisition, which was again enclosed to your Excellency on the 13th of October, 1887.
Having thus complied with every condition which your Excellency has indicated that should be necessary, I had every reason to suppose that steps had been taken for the rendition of the fugitives named, and I knew nothing to the contrary, until early in the present month, when I was advised by the authorities of Pike County that your Excellency had, for some cause, declined up to that time, to issue your warrant for the arrest and delivery of the parties referred to, and that, in addition to the crime for which they stood indicted, they had recently perpetrated other crimes of the most atrocious character in the same locality.
Accordingly, on the 9th inst., I wrote your Excellency, advising you of the information which I had received, and requesting to be advised whether there was then anything which prevented the rendition of the criminals. In response to this letter I received, only a few days since, your letter of January 21st (1888) in which you did me the honor to state your reasons for not complying with my request, and in which, among other things, you say: “and although the application for the requisition does not appear to be made or supported by any official authority of Pike County, etc.”
I confess myself at a loss to understand how your Excellency could possibly know anything whatever about the character of the application made to me for a requisition in this case. I did not attach it to the requisition enclosed to your Excellency, for the obvious reason that the law governing the extradition of fugitives nowhere requires it, or in any way intimates that it would even be proper to do so. On the contrary, it seems to contemplate, the papers being correct in other respects, that the Executive making the demand, must be the sole Judge of the circumstances under which it would be proper for him to issue his requisition. I, therefore, had no reason to suppose that your Excellency would feel it your duty to inquire into this point, especially as you had in your first letter, returning the requisition, given no such intimation.
But if your Excellency desires to be advised as to that branch of the case, I certainly have no objections to telling you that the application for the requisition and rewards in this case was made by the County Judge of Pike County, indorsed by the Judge of the District Court, and urged by the Commonwealth’s Attorney of the district, who was personally present when the application was presented.
In referring to Elias Hatfield and Andrew Varney, your Excellency is pleased to say: “The many affidavits of reliable persons showing that these two men were miles away at the time of the killing of the McCoys induced me to withhold, for the present, the warrant as to them, believing that when your Excellency was made acquainted with the facts their rendition would not be demanded.” The indictment accompanying the requisition charges that these two men were present and aided in the killing; this being so, I respectfully submit that the guilt or innocence of these men is a question which it is not the province of your Excellency or myself to decide, but one which the court, having jurisdiction of the case can alone rightfully determine. And if, as you seem to suppose, the innocence of these two men can be so easily established, it would seem strange that they have not long before this voluntarily appeared in the court where they stand accused, and which is so convenient to their homes, and in which they might, if such be the case, be triumphantly vindicated against this grave charge.
From my knowledge of the enlightened and upright Judge of the court in which they stand charged, I feel assured that they would be awarded a speedy and fair trial; but if they think otherwise, and have fears, either as to the impartiality of the Judge, or as to the prejudice of the community in whose midst they are to be tried, they can, under our laws, not only swear off the Judge, but can, on proper showing, easily obtain a change of venue to another county in which no prejudice whatever exists. Under these circumstances, your Excellency can readily see that they would, in any event, have no difficulty whatever in obtaining a fair and impartial trial.
Before receiving your letter I had been fully apprised of the efforts on the part of P. A. Kline to secure a withdrawal of the requisition and rewards in this case; in fact, the cool proposition made to me by the indicted parties through their attorney, to the effect that they would obligate themselves not to come again into Kentucky, provided I would withdraw the requisitions and rewards named, was endorsed by Mr. Kline, who had previously shown an active interest in their apprehension. But this proposition, I, of course, declined to entertain, much less to agree to; and even admitting the truth of the affidavit enclosed by your Excellency, which charges in terms that the friends of the indicted parties succeeded in bribing Kline, their former enemy, to urge the acceptance of their proposition, I cannot see why this should cause your Excellency to hesitate about issuing your warrant for the rendition of these parties to the proper authorities, upon whose application the requisition was issued, and whose conduct is not even questioned. Indeed, it seems to me that the questionable means which the friends of the indicted parties have been employing to secure a withdrawal of the requisition and rewards of this case ought, of itself, to induce your Excellency to regard with suspicion the efforts which they seem to be making to prevent the issuing of your warrant for their apprehension and delivery.
My information as to the history of these troubles, briefly stated, are as follows: On the 9th day of August, 1882, Anderson Hatfield and twenty-two other desperate characters of Logan County, West Virginia, residing near the State line, crossed the river into Pike County, Kentucky, arrested three sons of Randolph McCoy, and having tied them to trees, deliberately shot them to death. It was for this cruel and inhuman murder that the parties named in my requisition were indicted in the Pike Circuit Court, three separate indictments having been found against the parties named for the murder of the three McCoy brothers, respectively; though it is possible that only one of these indictments was attached to the requisition issued upon your Excellency on the 10th day of September last.
So far from “no move having been made in this matter for more than five years after the finding of the indictments,” as stated by your Excellency, the fact is, that bench warrants have been all the while in the hands of the officers of Pike County, in the hope that these parties, who lived near the State line, and were frequently seen in Kentucky, could be arrested by the authorities of the State without the necessity of applying for a requisition upon the Governor of West Virginia; and my predecessor at one time offered a reward for those who were supposed to be most responsible for the murder. But the indicted parties, knowing the efforts which were being made for their arrest, though frequently seen in Kentucky, always came in crowds, well armed, so that it was impossible to arrest them before they could return to the West Virginia side of the river. They have, on several occasions, while in Kentucky, unmercifully whipped defenseless women and inoffensive men, whose only provocation was some alleged remark in disapproval of their lawless conduct.
The names of the various persons, who, at different times, have been thus brutally assailed, and the circumstances connected therewith, have been furnished me, but it is not deemed necessary here to mention them in detail.
Finally, on the 10th day of September last, upon the application of the local authorities, as heretofore indicated, I issued my requisition for all the persons named in the indictment for the murder of the McCoy brothers, and offered suitable rewards for four of the number, represented as being the leaders of the party and most responsible for their conduct.
Thus matters stood until the latter part of December (1887), when Frank Phillips, named as agent in the requisition for these parties, having sent the required fee, and being unable to hear anything from your Excellency, went into West Virginia in company with two others, and without any disturbance or conflict of any kind, succeeded in capturing Tom Chambers, Selkirk McCoy and Moses Christian, three of the persons named in the indictment for the murder of the McCoy brothers, who were brought to Kentucky and lodged in the jail of Pike County. This so incensed the Hatfield party that on the night of January 1st (1888) a company of twelve men, headed by Cap Hatfield and James Vance, Sr., came from West Virginia into Pike County (Kentucky) and having surrounded the house of Randolph McCoy, the father of the three McCoy brothers, who had been murdered in 1882, commanded him to surrender, saying they were the Hatfield crowd. They then forced their way into a room where the daughters were sleeping, shot one of them through the heart, and set fire to the house. The old man and his son, Calvin, seeing that they intended to kill them, made the best defense they could, but the flames soon drove them from the house.
The son, in his efforts to escape, was riddled with bullets, and the old man, who ran in an opposite direction, was fired upon by several of the party, but escaped unhurt. His wife, had, in the meantime, come out of the house and begged for mercy, but was struck on the head and side with a gun, breaking her ribs and knocking her senseless to the ground, after which she was thrown back into the house to be burnt, but was dragged out by her daughters as they left the burning building. Some days thereafter, twenty-six men armed themselves and went into West Virginia in pursuit of the perpetrators of this atrocious crime, and on reaching the house of Anderson Hatfield, so far from abusing or mistreating his wife, as has been represented to your Excellency, they treated her kindly, and at her request left some of their party there with her to quiet her fears; but after leaving there in search of the men, they were fired upon by James Vance, Sr., Cap Hatfield and others, and in the fight which followed, James Vance, Sr., was killed, having on his person when killed two pistols and a repeating rifle. Old Randolph McCoy was not with this raiding party, as has been represented to your Excellency, but was at that time in Pikeville, Kentucky, as the citizens of that place will all testify.
The pursuing party then returned to Kentucky, and being reinforced by ten additional men, went the next day and succeeded, without the firing of a gun, in capturing six more of the men indicted for the murder of the McCoy brothers, in 1882, bringing them back to Kentucky, where they were lodged in the jail of Pike County.
Eight or ten days thereafter, Frank Phillips and eighteen others went again into West Virginia in pursuit of the remaining parties, belonging to what is known as the Hatfield crowd, and only a short distance from the State line were met by Cap Hatfield, Anderson Hatfield and ten armed men, who fired upon Phillips and his posse from ambush before they were aware of their presence. Phillips and his party returned the fire, killing Dempsey and putting others to flight. Phillips and his party then returned to the Kentucky side, but went back on the following day, and as to what has since occurred I have no information.
The foregoing account, which differs so widely from that received by you, was obtained from the County Attorney of Pike County, who claims to have taken great pains to ascertain the real facts, and who seems to have no doubt about its correctness; but I, of course, understand how difficult it is to arrive at exact facts in an affair of this kind from the statements which he may have heard from the parties on either side. I regret exceedingly that any portion of the citizens of Pike County should have attempted, under any circumstances, to arrest citizens of West Virginia for crimes committed in the State without first obtaining the requisite authority therefor. I am satisfied that Frank Phillips, the agent appointed by me to receive the fugitives named in my requisition, is not the murderous outlaw your Excellency seems to suppose; but as he has undertaken to arrest some of the parties in West Virginia, without your warrant, and is, therefore, objectionable to you, I will, when your Excellency indicates your readiness to surrender the persons demanded, take pleasure in designating another agent for that purpose.
Your obedient servant,
S. B. Buckner.