On this day in 1882: The long-simmering feud between the Hatfields and McCoys broke out into warfare.
The dispute between the McCoys of Kentucky and the Hatfields of West Virginia was believed to have started over a pig. But it erupted into a full declaration of war on Election Day, Aug. 7, 1882, when three McCoy boys stabbed Ellison Hatfield 26 times and finished him off with a shot in the back. Three days later, the three boys were tied to pawpaw trees and shot to death by a posse organized by the patriarch of the Hatfield family, “Devil Anse” Hatfield.
Before the families finally agreed to stop fighting around 1891, the death toll numbered 13.
In 1979, the two families united for a week’s taping of the popular game show “Family Feud,” in which they played for a cash prize and a pig, which was kept onstage during the shows.
