Our Southern Highlanders Part 23

CHAPTER XV

THE BLOOD-FEUD

In Corsica, when a man is wronged by another, public sentiment requires that he redress his own grievance, and that his family and friends shall share the consequences.

"Before the law made us citizens, great Nature made us men."

"When one has an enemy, one must choose between the three S's--_schiopetto, stiletto, strada_: the rifle, the dagger, or flight."

"There are two presents to be made to an enemy--_palla calda o ferro freddo_: hot shot or cold steel."

The Corsican code of honor does not require that vengeance be taken in fair fight. Rather should there be a sudden thrust of the knife, or a pistol fired point-blank into the enemy's breast, or a rifle-shot from some ambush picked in advance.

The a.s.sa.s.sin is not conscious of any cowardice in such act. If the trouble between him and his foe had been strictly a personal matter, to be settled forever by one man's fall, then he might have welcomed a duel with all the punctilios. But his blood is not his alone--it belongs to his clan. Whenever a Corsican is slain his family takes up the feud.

A vendetta ensues--a war of extermination by clan against clan.

Now, the chief object of war, as all strategists agree, is to inflict the greatest loss upon the enemy with the least loss to one's own side.

Hence we have hostilities without declaration of war; we have the ambush, the night attack, masked batteries, mines and submarines. Thus we murder hundreds asleep or unshriven. This is war.

Moreover, while a soldier must be brave in any extremity, it is no less his duty to save himself unharmed as long as he can, so that he may help his own side and kill more and more of the enemy. Therefore it is proper and military for him to "snipe" his foes by deliberate sharpshooting from behind any lurking-place that he can find. This is war.

And the vendetta, says our Corsican, is nothing else than war.

When Matteo has been slain by an enemy, his friends carry his body home and swear vengeance over the corpse, while his wife soaks her handkerchief in his wounds to keep as a token whereby she will incite her children, as they grow up, to war against all kinsmen of their father's murderer.

Then a son or brother of Matteo slips forth into the night, full-armed to slay like a dog any member of the rival faction whom he may find at a disadvantage. The deed done, he flies to the _maquis_, the mountain thicket, and there he will hide, dodging the gendarmes, fighting off his enemies--an outlaw with a price upon his head, but pitied or admired by all Corsicans outside the feud, and succored by his clan.

It is a far cry from the Mediterranean to our own Appalachia: so why this prelude? Our mountaineers never heard of Corsica. Not a drop of South European blood flows in their veins. Few of them ever heard one word of a foreign tongue. True. And yet we shall mark some strange a.n.a.logies between Corsican vendettas and Appalachian feuds, Corsican clannishness and Appalachian clannishness, Corsican women and our mountain women--before this chapter ends.

Long, long ago, in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, Dr. Abner Baker married a Miss White. Daniel Bates married Baker's sister, but separated from her in 1844. Baker charged Bates with undue intimacy with his wife, and killed him. The Whites, defending their kinswoman, prosecuted the Doctor, but he was acquitted, and moved to Cuba.

Afterwards Baker returned. In flat violation of the Const.i.tution of the United States, he was tried a second time for the murder of Bates, was convicted, and was hanged. Thenceforth there was "bad blood" between the Bakers and the Whites, involving the Garrards on one side and the Howards on the other, as allies to the respective clans.

In 1898, Tom Baker, reputed to be the best shot in the Kentucky mountains, bought a note given by A. B. Howard, for whom he was cutting timber. Howard became furious, a fight ensued, one of the Howard boys and Burt Stores were killed from ambush, and the elder Howard was wounded.

Thereupon Jim Howard, son of the clan chief, sought out Tom Baker's father, who was county attorney, compelled the unarmed old man to fall upon his knees, shot him twenty-five times with careful aim to avoid a vital spot, and so killed him by inches. Howard was tried and convicted of murder, but it is said that a pardon was offered him if he would go to the State Capitol at Frankfort and a.s.sa.s.sinate Governor Goebel, which he is charged with having done.

In Clay County, where this feud waged, the judge, clerk, sheriff, and jailer were of the White clan. Tom Baker killed a brother of the sheriff and took to the hills rather than give himself up to a court ruled by his foemen. Then Albert Garrard was fired upon from ambush while riding with his wife to a religious meeting. He removed to Pineville, in another county, under guard of two armed men, both of whom were shot dead "from the bresh."

Governor Bradley sent State troops into Clay County, and Tom Baker surrendered to them. Baker was tried in the Knox Circuit Court, on a change of venue, and was sentenced to the penitentiary for life. On appeal his attorneys secured a reversal of the verdict, and Baker was released on bail. The new trial was set for June, 1899. Governor Bradley again sent a company of State militia, with a Gatling gun, to Manchester where the trial was to be held. Baker was put in a guard-tent surrounded by a squad of soldiers. A hundred yards or so from this tent stood the unoccupied residence of the sheriff, at the foot of a wooded mountain.

An a.s.sa.s.sin hidden in this house spied upon the guard-tent, and, when Baker appeared, shot him dead with a rifle, then took to the woods and escaped.

I quote now from a history of this feud published in _Munsey's Magazine_ of November, 1903.--

"Captain John Bryan, of the 2d Kentucky, said to the widow of the murdered Tom Baker, after they returned from the funeral:

"'Mrs. Baker, why don't you leave this miserable country and escape from these terrible feuds? Move away, and teach your children to forget.'

"'Captain Bryan,' said the widow, and she spoke evenly and quietly, 'I have twelve sons. It will be the chief aim of my life to bring them up to avenge their father's death. Each day I shall show my boys _the handkerchief stained with his blood_, and tell them who murdered him.'"

Corsican vendetta or Kentucky feud--what are language and race against age-long isolation and an environment that keeps humanity feral to the core?

Shortly after Baker's death, four Griffins, of the White-Howard faction, ambushed Big John Philpotts and his cousin, wounding the former severely and the latter mortally. Big John fought them from behind a log and killed all four.

On July 17, 1899, four of the Philpotts were attacked by four Morrises, of the Howard side. Three men were killed, three mortally wounded, and the other two were severely injured. No arrests were made.

Finally, in 1901, the two clans fought a pitched battle in front of the court-house in Manchester. At its conclusion they formally signed a truce.

This is a mere scenario of a feud in the wealthiest and best-schooled county of eastern Kentucky. Two of the families involved were of distinguished lineage, counting in their ranks a governor, three generals, a member of Congress, and a prohibition candidate for the Presidency.

In reviewing this feud, Governor Bradley stated:

"The whole fault in Clay County is a vitiated public sentiment and a failure of the civil authorities to do their duty. The laws are insufficient for the Governor to apply a remedy. Such feuds have been in progress more or less for years, and no Governor of the State has ever been able to quell them. They have terminated only when their force was spent by one side or the other being killed or moving out of the country."

"The laws are insufficient for the Governor to apply a remedy." One naturally asks, "How so?" The answer is that the Governor cannot send troops into a county except upon request of the civil authorities, and they must go as a posse to civil officers. In most feuds these officers are partisans (in fact, it is a favorite ruse for one clan to win or usurp the county offices before making war). Hence the State troops would only serve as a reinforcement to one of the contending factions.

To show how this works out, we will sketch briefly the course of another feud.--

In Rowan County, Kentucky, in 1884, there was an election quarrel between two members of the Martin and Toliver families. The Logans sided with the Martins and the Youngs with the Tolivers. The Logan-Martin faction elected their candidate for sheriff by a margin of twelve votes.

Then there was an affray in which one Logan was killed and three were wounded.

As usual, in feuds, no immediate redress was attempted, but the injured clan plotted its vengeance with deadly deliberation. After five months, d.i.c.k Martin killed Floyd Toliver. His own people worked the trick of arresting him themselves and sent him to Winchester for safe-keeping.

The Tolivers succeeded in having him brought back on a forged order and killed him when he was bound and helpless.

The leader of the Young-Toliver faction was a notorious bravo named Craig Toliver. To strengthen his power he became candidate for town marshal of Morehead, and he won the office by intimidation at the polls.

Then, for two years, a bushwhacking war went on. Three times the Governor sent troops into Rowan County, but each time they found nothing but creeks and thickets to fight. Then he prevailed upon the clans to sign a truce and expatriate their chiefs for one year in distant States.

Craig Toliver obeyed the order by going to Missouri, but returned several months before the expiration of his term, _resumed office_, and renewed his atrocities. In the warfare that ensued all the county officers were involved, from the judge down.

In 1887, Proctor Knott, Governor of Kentucky, said in his message, of the Logan-Toliver feud:

"Though composed of only a small portion of the community, these factions have succeeded by their violence in overawing and silencing the voice of the peaceful element, and in intimidating the officers of the law. Having their origin partly in party rancor, they have ceased to have any political significance, and have become contests of personal ambition and revenge; each party seeking apparently to possess itself of the machinery of justice in order that it may, under the forms of law, seek the gratification of personal animosities.

"During the present year the local leader of one of these factions came in possession of the office of police judge of the town of Morehead. Under color of the authority of that office, and sustained by an armed band of adherents, he exercised despotic sway over the town and its vicinage. He banished citizens who were obnoxious to him; and, in one instance, after arresting two citizens who seem to have been guilty of no offense, he and his party, attended by a deputy sheriff of the county, murdered them in cold blood.

"This act of atrocity fully aroused the community. A posse acting under the authority of a warrant from the county judge attacked the police judge and his adherents on the 22d of June last, killed several of their number, and put the rest to flight, and temporarily restored something like tranquility to the community.

"The proceedings of the Circuit Court, which was held in August, were not calculated to inspire the citizens with confidence in securing justice. The report of the Adjutant General on this subject shows, from information derived 'from representative men without reference to party affiliations,' that the judge of the Circuit Court seems so far under the influence of the reputed leader of one of the factions as to permit such an organization of the grand juries as will effectually prevent the indictment of members of that faction for the most flagrant crimes."

The posse here mentioned was organized by Daniel Boone Logan, a cousin of the two young men who had been murdered, a college graduate, and a lawyer of good standing. With the a.s.sent of the Governor, he gathered fifty to seventy-five picked men and armed them with the best modern rifles and revolvers. Some of the men were of his own clan; others he hired. His plan was to end the war by exterminating the Tolivers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo by U. S. Forest Service