Killing Time in Carter County.

As they lay in wait, as if hunting for a deer, they are all thinking about the circumstances that have brought them to this point. How could they stand by as their family was being killed off, one by one, like vermin? Is it not a matter of honor? How could they call themselves a man if they do not defend what is theirs? They all know the only thing to do is to kill the Underwood's, before they get killed themselves. After all the county authorities could not, or better yet would not help. Justice is in their hands, along with their firearms and they know it is time for this feud to come to an end.

Most of us have grown up hearing of the Hatfield-McCoy feud; most of us look at this event as a freak occurrence. An event such as a feud could only happen in a backward part of the country, where the rule of law does not exist, and a place where inbred families are ruled by the iron fist of their patriarchs.

English: Close-up of a section of the floodwall al...

Underwood 18

Underwood, Ontario

Men sit on their front porches waiting to see an interloper to shoot without remorse. These backward hillbillies have no respect for human life, how could they without a proper education, and other refinements that those who live in the city are so accustomed to.

The truth is that feuding was not a freak occurrence; it occurred quite a bit during the last half of the nineteenth century. The reasons for the feuding, however, are not as cut and dried as many believe. Just as most occurrences with people, there is not one simple reason for their actions, but a complex set of events. Circumstances that occur to make a person or persons react in a given way. This paper...