Hatfields & McCoys

I don't know if y'all watched the Hatfields & McCoys earlier this week on The History Channel. It was a total of six hours - two hours on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Totally wrecked my sleep schedule. But I liked it, and I recommend.

The whole time, all I could think of was the mountains of NC. Totally diggin the scenery, and the accents were southern/Appalachian mountains, and in my humble opinion, actually sounded like the area - especially considering some of the actors have foreign accents in real life.

I could not get past the "era" details - the teeth, the dirty clothes and the thought of "honeymooning" with somebody back in the day. And they managed to have more than a dozen kids per family? Whoa. Random, I know. But, really, it was interesting, and crazy that this shiz went down, and lasted almost 30 years.

Here's a nice overview for those of you wondering, What's all this about?

A couple random, non-intellectual, non-historical things I found of interest:

1) Both families seemed to have an endless supply of younguns.

Hatfields - 13 kids
McCoys - 16 kids
Where were these children made? They all lived in a tiny lil cabin. Eeek.

2) Love the names:

HATFIELDS - 
*Anderson "Devil Anse"
*Cap
*Ellison
*Valentine "Wall"
*Johnson "Johnse"
*Cotton Top
*Elias "Good 'Lias"
*Levicy

McCOYS -
*Randolph "Randall"/"Ole Ran'l"
*Asa "Harmon"
*Tolbert
*Roseanna
*Pharmer
*Alifair
*Parris
*Selkirk
*Ransom 

Click here for a good interactive overview of the main characters in the movie.

Watching led me to get my google/wikipedia on.

The Hatfields in 1897: (couldn't find a legit McCoy photo)

Check out the dog.

The word from Wikipedia:
In 1979, the two families united for a special week's taping of the popular game show Family Feud, in which they played for a cash prize and a pig which was kept on stage during the games.
The Hatfield family won the contest 301- 227.

Great-great-great grandsons of feud patriarch, Randolph McCoy, Bo McCoy of Waycross, Georgia, and his cousin, Ron McCoy of Durham, North Carolina, organized an historic joint family reunion of the Hatfield and McCoy families in 2000. More than 5000 persons attended the reunion, which attained national attention and was dubbed "The Reunion of the Millennium"

Crazy, ain't it?

Hubs didn't see it yet, so we are watching again tonight. He'll be all about the historical value. I'm wanting to watch again because I feel like there's little things that'll make more sense the second time around. Plus, I'm half sick and my back hurts and I ain't tryin to go nowhere on this here Saturday night.

Every time I watch, or think of the Hatfields and McCoys, I also think of this:

You can find all three full episodes on History.com.