Hatfields and McCoys, cap and ball,

hatfields and McCoys

OUTLAWJOSEY WALES I love that scene, too. It's one of my favorite cowboy scenes of all times. When Duvall says "By god I've had enough" and he flips the sight up on his Henry and points it up in the air {I don,t remember the angle, just up} and hits that guy, well that was great! And I'm sure sure there were guys back then proficent enough with thier Henrys to do that. But I don't really buy the Buffalo Scene in "Dances with Wolves".
 
Henry Original Loads

Hawg, I did some looking around and the original load was{you're right] a 216 grain bullet over 25 grains of black powder. BUT, there were several variants made, And Turkey also purchased a lot of Henry's and Colt S/A chamber to fire the Henry round. MAN, I wonder if any of those ever showed up. If a box of shells goes for $1500, imagine if one of those weapons showed up, they probably did and are in some collection somewhere.
 
[I guess I was making the distinction between hunting and murder (/QUOTE]

If it's to be murder, then a smart man will choose a long gun..... A handgun is to have handy, for unforeseen self defense- murder being by very nature so very not, "unforeseen" ..... if you know ahead of time, then you will choose a better tool (a rifle), and bring all your freinds with rifles .....

.....if all you have is kin, then they will show up as best they can, with what they have.....

Seen outside a decidedly Southern Gun Store:

"Guns for Sale.

Some Good,

Some not so Good,

some don't even work.

All of 'em better'n Runnin'."
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Well, I'm still of the opinion that muzzleloaders were pretty much put away for good by the end of WWII. At least, I never saw one and I spent more than a little time back in the sticks. The county even used 4x4 school buses where I lived. But I will grant that it is possible, just unlikely.

I also take issue with the level of poverty in the hills but you first have to understand there were two classes of people living back in the coal fields of southwestern West Virginia, although class is not really an appropriate word.

One group consisted of the descendents of the original settlers and mostly had English and Scotch-Irish names. My stepmother was named McKinney, the local general store and post office was run by a family named Mills. There were also Cooks (originally German Koch), Grahams, Sturgills, and Poe. Don't remember other names. Some were still managing to farm some, others also worked in the mines.

The other group were immigrants and their descendents, all from Italy in that part of the country. They didn't live out in the hills. They lived in "coal camps" or in town. Those who had been born in Italy were all older than my father and I suspect they all came during the 1920s.

Some of the small towns were real boom towns in the 1940s and 1950s. They were hardly all that well off but poverty stricken is probably an exaggeration. Hard times came later as the mines worked out and with the increasing use of machines and strip mining. The ones that stayed became worse off but there was an exodus of people out of the coal fields and I was one of them.

I noticed a shoulder holster in one of the photos and the pistol being held by a boy in the second photo looks like a, what, Forehand and Wadsworth? I'll look that up. (Maybe a Merwin Hulbert?)

The feuding and fighting, including the Matewan fight, took place further west from places I lived. Unexplored territory, it says on my maps. But in Mercer County, to be sure, there was a lot of hard feelings and some continued struggles after the Civil War. It was a border county in a border state and that's the way things usually turn out. There was a struggle over where the county courthouse was going to be. A midnight expedition settled the matter for good. One town in one of the next counties over even changed its name to "Union," just to make sure everyone was clear on their stand.
 
Thanks for the history and personal stories.

Although most people in the country, who are not of Southern heritage, don't know it and don't care, but the "hard feeling" about the war continued throughout the 20th century. My mother is 82, still talks about how her family lost their property in Georgia during "the war" and is still not happy about it. And she's not talking Vietnam war here either. The feelings were very strong in the early 20th century, as the fathers who fought that war began to pass away. It's when most of the monuments were put up.

So the late 19th century "feelings' could certainly have ended in bloodshed when the actual people who fought went back home.
 
Gold was discovered in Idaho just before the Civil War and the territory was admitted as the Civil War began. During the gold rush era, from around 1862 until about 1870, there were probably equal numbers of Southerners and Northerners. The impact of the South in my part of the state is pretty clear - towns like Atlanta and Dixie, the Secesh (as in secession) River and such.

Even after the war, right up until statehood in 1890, there were hard feelings. The territorial officials were appointed by the Republican administration in Washington, DC, but the Democrats maintained a pretty good hold on elected offices due to the support of the Southern contingent. It led to a virtual gridlock in the courts and more than a few "bushwhackings". Of course, there was the general chaos that came with gold fever, but it's pretty safe to say that there was a great deal of pride reserved by both sides of the Mason-Dixon line and plenty of fellows willing to back up that pride with a revolver.

I doubt that the Boise Basin in Idaho is unique in that aspect - I'm sure that other areas in the West had their own North-South "interactions" as well.

Interestingly, my family managed to combine both sides. My great grandfather was a died in the wool abolitionist, Protestant, Catholic-hating Northerner, while my great grandmother came from a line of devout Catholic, slave-renting Southerners. Thankfully for all, he worshiped the very ground she walked on and love overcame all, although I believe that Lent, Easter and Christmas caused a little prickliness with the family.

They were married by the justice of the peace. A fitting compromise, I think.
 
hatfieldds, ect.

I grew up in Ft. Thomas, Ky. My Mom had a 1961 red Ford convertible. Kentucky only required rear plates [still do ] And her front plate was a Southern soldier with crossed revolvers and said " FORGET HELL" I'm sure some of you guys have seen that plate over the years. But that demonstrates how people even in the '60's still thought about the war between the states. Our neighbor in Kentucky always flew the "Stars 'n' Bars" under his American flag on Veterens Day and the Fourth of July.
 
Try to remember that guns are expensive tools, and in hard times, most folk have to make hard decisions about what to spend their money on- a new gun is very nice to have, but would get much less use than a new horse or plow.
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Of corse that only applied to lawful folk. You got to remember that law enforcement was almost non-existant. So was comunication. A new gun I suspect got quite a few new horses and gear for folks (especially when in a blood feud) if you shot the lonely rider no one was the wiser. I also suspect that in areas where lonely riders went missing folks were willing to spend the extra dough on a gun (especially when in a blood feud).:D
 
Goodness, don't exaggerate the lawlessness of people back in the hills. Not everyone was or was related to either side of that fight. And anyway, it wasn't really "unexplored territory."
 
Not to pile on with regard to "accuracy" but I noted the aluminum horse shoes on all the horses as they charged forward just before the Battle of Grapevine scene (about 2/3rds the way though part three). I'm not sure when aluminum horse shoes became widely used but I know it wasn't in the 1880's.
 
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ClemBert, my wife said exactly the same thing to me (after I ran on and on about the "Confederate" Remingtons). She also wondered about the saddles. She knows horses better than I know guns!
 
Thankfully I don't own horses anymore. Something tells me ya know what I mean...wink, wink, wink ;) ;) ;)

I feel much better dedicating my time, effort, and money on BP revolvers....hehehe. :D
 
robhof

After hearing me comment on the guns, my wife spoke up about the saddles, as a horse person, she knew they took great liberties with their saddles.:eek::eek::rolleyes:
 
My question to you is, from a historic standpoint, how late in the century do you think the cap n balls became relics in the minds of the gun-totin' citizenry? Would they have still been in common use?
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The famous gun writer Elmer Keith started shooting hand guns in the late 1890's early 1900's. he started with cap and ball revolvers and commented that many of the 'old timers' still used the cap and ball as their primary revolver.
 
hatfields, ect.

I've got 40 years of back-issue gun magazines setting around. Elmer Keith wrote for many of them and even had a monthly column in 'GUNS + AMMO'. I remember him saying that a lot of the "old timers' still carried 1860, old colt Navies, and Remington's c/b's around. And this was in the "10's and '20s. We both may have read some of the same articles he wrote. He was quite a guy and was deeply attached to his wife, of more than 50 years. I don't remember if he had any children, as he never mentioned any in his many articles I read about, or written by him. He was quite a man, that's for sure!
 
Veering off course...

Speaking of Elmer Keith, if you ever get to Boise, Idaho, the Cabela's store has an excellent collection of his guns, along with a slightly cheesy animatronic Elmer Keith who tells a bit of his story. It's worth a visit just to see that and the big ol' catfish, Bubba, who lives in the giant fish tanks in the store.
 
I knew him well. Went out to stay a week with him and his wife in 1964.
He was born about 75 miles from where I live now. Him and I worked on
some loads. He was never seen without his S&W 44 mag.
 
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