Jackson is also the terminus of three railroads. The town has good schools and several churches, but church-going, schools and trading were sadly interrupted and at times completely stopped during the reign of terror which held Breathitt in its bloody clutches during the first decade of the present century.
It is impossible in a limited space to give more than passing notice to all of the feudal wars which have been fought from time to time in Breathitt County. To do so would fill a volume. What the reader finds detailed in this chapter relates principally to the Hargis-Cockrell-Marcum-Callahan vendetta. It is the most recent feud. What transpired during it is but a repetition of what had occurred in others.
The first widespread feud in Breathitt County originated immediately after the Civil War. In that national conflict the county furnished soldiers to the South and to the Union. John Amis and William (Bill) Strong raised a company for the Federal cause. It became a part of the so-called “Greasy Fourteenth,” and was commanded by Col. H. C. Little.
It was in this regiment that the noted Amis-Strong feud arose. It was the first of a series of bloody internecine strifes in that county.
The hatred engendered during the Amis-Strong feud was more bitter than the sectional strife between the armies of the North and of the South. A feud between the two factions was not recognized to have existed, however, until about 1878.
In that year open and serious hostilities were precipitated by a fight during Circuit Court. In the battle Bob Little, a nephew of Captain Strong, was killed, and an Amis seriously wounded.
From that time on fights grew more numerous. Charges and countercharges were made on both sides. The county was in a ferment. Finally, nearly every family became involved in one way or another.
How many men were killed in this feud will, perhaps, never be known, but many graves were filled. In this connection it may be well to state that the county has rarely had a coroner and no records were kept of deaths. It is thus an impossibility to ascertain the number of violent deaths which have occurred in the past.
John Amis himself, the head of the faction of that name, was killed in 1873. The feud finally “burned itself out.”
A few years after the termination of this one another started, under the name of the Strong-Callahan feud. Some of the members of the factions in the Strong-Amis feud also participated in this one. In this war Capt. Bill Strong headed his faction. Wilson Callahan, the father of Ed. Callahan, who figures so prominently in the Hargis-Cockrell feud, commanded the opposing forces.