Among these are that it was given to him by his mother; that he was named it by Randolph McCoy; that he earned the nickname from his bravery during battle in the American Civil War; or because it contrasted to his good-tempered cousin, Anderson "Preacher Anse" Hatfield.

He was commissioned a First Lieutenant of Cavalry in the Virginia State Line in 1862, a group made to protect the territory along the Kentucky-Virginia border where resident loyalties to the Union and Confederacy were mixed.

[4] Devil Anse and his uncle Jim Vance later formed a Confederate guerrilla fighting unit called the "Logan Wildcats.

[6] In 1865, he was suspected of having been involved in the murder of his rival Asa Harmon McCoy, who had fought for the Union Army and was waylaid by The Wildcats on his return home.

Despite being illiterate, he managed to build a profitable lumber business, much of which was on thousands of acres of virgin timberland he had won in a lawsuit from McCoy relative Perry Cline.

Their 13 children were: Hatfield died on Thursday, January 6, 1921, in Sarah Ann, Logan County, West Virginia at the age of 81 of pneumonia at his home along Island Creek.