That's the legend of it, and it's what the media hammered on to the outside world - that it was "all over a hog". The reality is a little more complicated and nuanced.
There were other factors that led to escalations. Things like a logging contract, which stood to net a fair bit of coin to the winner. When you go to messing with someone's money and livlihood, things can escalate pretty quickly, not just here, but the world over.
And there were other killings at the foundational level of the dispute, "scores" settled stemming from the Civil War, and who served on which side. That seems to have been a general thing in the Appalachians, as we have a funny idea of "loyalty", and where it ought to reside... and of the proper remedy for "disloyalty".
My own paternal great great grandpa may have been caught up in such a dispute. I don't know, as I can't get to the bottom of it. He died in 1866, at the relatively young age of his early 30's, and I've never been able to discover what he died of. However, the timing of it - in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War - combined with his age at death and the general unrest flowing out of the Civil War in that area of Virginia / West Virginia gives me certain suspicions that I can't lay to rest without knowing the facts of it.
I do know that in that area - my GG grandpa's area of WV - there was a lot of unrest and killing surrounding Civil War partisans. Some of my ancestors, maybe that one in particular included, were members of partisan guerrilla bands in those days, outfits like "the Hellfire Band" and "The Moccasin Rangers". Old animosities left over from those associations lived on past their sell-by date in the aftermath of the Civil War.
I have found his name in the membership listings of both the Hellfired Band and the Moccasin Rangers, as well as the 19th VA Cav, but cannot be certain the name is really the individual who is my direct paternal ancestor. Around here, some more popular names tend to get re-used along different branches of a family tree, with the net result that just finding a name doesn't necessarily mean you've found the right person - it could be the name of a cousin or other relative that just so happens to carry the same name. So, without further corroborating evidence, you just can't be sure you're looking at the same individual.
So, while the hog connection may have been a factor, I'm sure it was not the only, or even the determining, factor.
Keep in mind too that back in those days, hogs were not kept in hog pens here. They were instead allowed to run wild through the forest, finding their own tucker on things like oak mast. Ownerships were kept track of in the free-ranging hogs by means of ear-marks cut into the hog's ear. Sales records were non-existent, and some times disputes over ownership of a hog developed under those circumstances.
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The "Moccasin Rangers" were a rowdy group, and their legend lives on. They originated as a guerrilla band that formed around the time of the beginning of the Civil War, with many of their members coming out of other organizations like "the Hellfired Band" of pre-war days. They were originally an impromptu "militia" of partisan guerrillas, without government sanction. Later in the war, around 1863, they gained government (Confederate) recognition and became the officially sanctioned "19th Virginia Cavalry" for the duration of the war, at the end of which they were officially disbanded.
Just because they lost government sanction, however, does not mean they in fact disbanded. In the several years beyond the Civil War, old animosities and scores continued to live on, with "settlement" occurring here and there to settle scores that should have been long dead, but were not. So that was another source of family feuds in those days, a variant of which may have also played in to the Hatfield-McCoy feud.
The Moccasin Rangers also factored heavily in the events that are now known as "The Legend of Booger Hole" in Clay County, West Virginia.
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Some folks are of the opinion that "Uncle Jim" Vance is the one who actually kicked the blood feud into high gear by killing a McCoy who had served in the Union armies rather than the Confederate armies. I think that we can all agree that killing off a family member tends to make a hog-stealing pale in comparison, and could potentially serve to re-heat an otherwise dying conflict.
So, while an alleged hog-stealing was alleged by the media to be the root of the matter, there were other escalatory events that got ignored in the rush to tell the tale to the outside world, when the media seized on the more outlandish "justifications" for the feud, and ignored what may have been more serious core events that escalated it.
.
There were other factors that led to escalations. Things like a logging contract, which stood to net a fair bit of coin to the winner. When you go to messing with someone's money and livlihood, things can escalate pretty quickly, not just here, but the world over.
And there were other killings at the foundational level of the dispute, "scores" settled stemming from the Civil War, and who served on which side. That seems to have been a general thing in the Appalachians, as we have a funny idea of "loyalty", and where it ought to reside... and of the proper remedy for "disloyalty".
My own paternal great great grandpa may have been caught up in such a dispute. I don't know, as I can't get to the bottom of it. He died in 1866, at the relatively young age of his early 30's, and I've never been able to discover what he died of. However, the timing of it - in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War - combined with his age at death and the general unrest flowing out of the Civil War in that area of Virginia / West Virginia gives me certain suspicions that I can't lay to rest without knowing the facts of it.
I do know that in that area - my GG grandpa's area of WV - there was a lot of unrest and killing surrounding Civil War partisans. Some of my ancestors, maybe that one in particular included, were members of partisan guerrilla bands in those days, outfits like "the Hellfire Band" and "The Moccasin Rangers". Old animosities left over from those associations lived on past their sell-by date in the aftermath of the Civil War.
I have found his name in the membership listings of both the Hellfired Band and the Moccasin Rangers, as well as the 19th VA Cav, but cannot be certain the name is really the individual who is my direct paternal ancestor. Around here, some more popular names tend to get re-used along different branches of a family tree, with the net result that just finding a name doesn't necessarily mean you've found the right person - it could be the name of a cousin or other relative that just so happens to carry the same name. So, without further corroborating evidence, you just can't be sure you're looking at the same individual.
So, while the hog connection may have been a factor, I'm sure it was not the only, or even the determining, factor.
Keep in mind too that back in those days, hogs were not kept in hog pens here. They were instead allowed to run wild through the forest, finding their own tucker on things like oak mast. Ownerships were kept track of in the free-ranging hogs by means of ear-marks cut into the hog's ear. Sales records were non-existent, and some times disputes over ownership of a hog developed under those circumstances.
------------------------------------
The "Moccasin Rangers" were a rowdy group, and their legend lives on. They originated as a guerrilla band that formed around the time of the beginning of the Civil War, with many of their members coming out of other organizations like "the Hellfired Band" of pre-war days. They were originally an impromptu "militia" of partisan guerrillas, without government sanction. Later in the war, around 1863, they gained government (Confederate) recognition and became the officially sanctioned "19th Virginia Cavalry" for the duration of the war, at the end of which they were officially disbanded.
Just because they lost government sanction, however, does not mean they in fact disbanded. In the several years beyond the Civil War, old animosities and scores continued to live on, with "settlement" occurring here and there to settle scores that should have been long dead, but were not. So that was another source of family feuds in those days, a variant of which may have also played in to the Hatfield-McCoy feud.
The Moccasin Rangers also factored heavily in the events that are now known as "The Legend of Booger Hole" in Clay County, West Virginia.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Some folks are of the opinion that "Uncle Jim" Vance is the one who actually kicked the blood feud into high gear by killing a McCoy who had served in the Union armies rather than the Confederate armies. I think that we can all agree that killing off a family member tends to make a hog-stealing pale in comparison, and could potentially serve to re-heat an otherwise dying conflict.
So, while an alleged hog-stealing was alleged by the media to be the root of the matter, there were other escalatory events that got ignored in the rush to tell the tale to the outside world, when the media seized on the more outlandish "justifications" for the feud, and ignored what may have been more serious core events that escalated it.
.