Family feuds in the United States
Often, a conflict which may have started out as a rivalry between two individuals or families became further escalated into a clan-wide feud or a range war, involving dozens—or even hundreds—of participants.
When the younger Hasley brought a local outlaw, Jim McRae, into the fight, Early sought federal troop intervention, which was granted.
The feud began after the killing of Asa Harmon McCoy, an ex-Union soldier, who was gunned down on January 7, 1865, while hiding in a cave.
[3] McCoy died at the hands of a group of Hatfield allies, and Confederate irregulars (named the "Logan Wildcats"), who had tracked him to his hiding place.
The simmering feud escalated soon afterward, when Roseanna McCoy began a courtship with Johnson "Johnse" Hatfield, Devil Anse's son.
When the war broke out, a resident of the area, Bob Lee, immediately joined the Confederate Army, leaving his wife, three children, and his home in the care of his father Daniel.
By the summer of 1868, the conflict had become so heated that Peacock requested help from the federal government, which promptly posted a $1,000 reward for Bob Lee's capture.
The following Christmas Eve, Sutton killed Buck Taylor and Dick Chisholm in a saloon in Clinton, after an argument regarding the sale of some horses.
The police force was tasked with enforcing the "Reconstruction" policies of the federal government, but operated with somewhat of a free-hand, and more often than not returned with wanted suspects dead.
[9] On August 26, 1870, the Suttons were allegedly sent to arrest Henry and his brother William Kelly, who were both related by marriage to Pitkin Taylor, on a trivial charge.
[9] In early 1872, on-the-run outlaw John Wesley Hardin joined his cousin, Mannen Clements, in neighboring Gonzales County, Texas.
On May 15, 1873, Sutton family allies Jim Cox and Jake Christman were killed by the Taylor faction during a gunfight at Tomlinson Creek.
As Helm attempted to flee into the blacksmith shop, Hardin held townspeople at gunpoint while Taylor unloaded the remaining five bullets from his revolver into him.
The feud reached its apex when Jim and his cousin Billy Taylor gunned down William Sutton and a friend, Gabriel Slaughter, as they waited on a steamboat platform, in Indianola, Texas, on March 11, 1874.
On November 17, 1875, Reuben H. Brown, the new leader of the Suttons and ex-marshal of Cuero, Texas, was shot down in the Exchange Saloon by Hardin, his last known action in the feud.
In January 1873, Lampasas County Sheriff, Shadrick T. Denson, attempted to arrest two brothers, Wash and Mark Short, who were friends of the Horrell family.
On March 14, 1873, state officers Wesley Cherry, Jim Daniels, and Andrew Melville arrested Bill Bowen, a brother-in-law to the Horrell brothers, for carrying a firearm (which Governor Davis had recently outlawed in the area).
The brothers fled to Lincoln County, New Mexico, where later that same year, Ben Horrell was himself killed after he murdered a local law enforcement officer.
The feud quickly escalated, when, on January 22, 1877 (while in the Wiley and Toland's Gem Saloon in Lampasas), John Higgins shot and killed Merritt Horrell in a gunfight.
All three Horrell brothers were arrested, and Texas Ranger, Major John B. Jones, acted as a mediator between the remaining members of the two factions.
The feud resulted in at least four deaths, numerous injuries and scuffles between factions, nationwide press coverage, and the extermination/out-migration of several key participants.
When several suspects in the attacks were set free by the court − some owing to legal technicalities and others based on the strength of alibis provided by sympathetic confederates – Wyatt Earp decided he could not rely on civil justice, and took matters into his own hands.
[18] On March 20, 1882, a newly deputized United States Marshal Wyatt Earp formed a federal posse that began to scour Cochise and Pima counties for the purpose of hunting down and killing the men he thought guilty of the attacks.
Wyatt and Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, John "Texas Jack" Vermillion, Dan Tipton, Charlie Smith, Fred Dodge, Johnny Green, and Lou Cooley made up the federal posse.
The killing began with the March 22, 1882, shooting of Frank Stilwell as he and several Outlaw Cowboys – including Ike Clanton – lay in ambush at the Tucson rail station.
[20] Stinson dissolved his herd and left Pleasant Valley in 1884 after his ranch foreman Marion McCann was attacked by members of the Tewksbury faction, causing the Grahams significant financial damage.
Survivors Jim and Joe McFarland, Alonzo Riddle (George's brother), and the wounded John Brooks were arrested pending murder charges, though all were quickly released on bail.
The feud ended on October 10, 1902 when Jim McFarland was ambushed and killed near his home, possibly at the hands of Sam Baker, a Brooks ally.
[32] From May 17, 1899 to May 17, 1907, five additional gunfights took place in the area, with the results that Dick Reese (Sam's brother), Arthur Burford, Hiram Clements and Jim Coleman lost their lives in the violence.
Legendary Texas Ranger, Captain Bill McDonald, along with officer James Brooks and others, were dispatched to the area to restore order, and ended the fighting.
