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Monday, May 28, 2012

The Hatfields & Mccoys - a Bloody Interpretation of 18th Century Civil War

The Hatfields & Mccoys - a Bloody Interpretation of 18th Century Civil War


History Channel debuted a glossy miniseries created for viewers waiting to see real blood, guts, and paranoia on TV - Hatfields & McCoys.

Hatfields & McCoys stars stars Kevin Costner as patriarch ‘Devil’ Anse Hatfield and Bill Paxton as counterpart Randall McCoy. Tom Berenger, meanwhile, plays as the terrifying Jim Vance, member of an ex-Confederate mafia and Anse’s uncle.

In the 18th century, the real Hatfields settled in the West Virginia side of Tug Fork, a tributary along the Big Sandy River. The real McCoys had settled in the Kentucky side roughly a decade earlier. A hundred years later, most of the Hatfield males set off to fight on the Confederate side of the War Between the States; a few McCoys joined the Union army. It’s likely this was the beginning of very hard feelings.

By most accounts, there are six main points of contention that brought these two families to bloody blows over the years during and following the Civil War. The first notable violent episode occurred in 1865, when an ex-Confederate league called ‘The Wildcats’ murdered Asa Harmon McCoy. At first, valley residents thought Anse Hatfield did it, but it was later determined that his uncle Vance had done it.

Over the next twenty years, land disputes, hog ownership fights, election poll conflicts, and vengeance for everything in between would take the lives of at least a dozen members of each family. There’s even a Romeo and Juliet story of sorts. Young Roseanna McCoy, played by the beautiful Lindsay Pulsipher, got involved with Johnse Hatfield (Matt Barr). She became pregnant, and was abandoned by Hatfield, who later married her cousin. The feud escalated to the point where the governors of both Kentucky and West Virginia became involved, and eventually, the Supreme Court of the United States.

All in all, Hatfields & McCoys will be an entertaining way to remind us that we can’t always stay safe from ourselves.

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