Part 13

Neither is this fear groundless, as is shown by the fact that more than twenty men have been killed in the French-Eversole feud, most of them being shot from ambush. This is the secret of all the troubles. The people are held in terror by a few desperadoes. The peaceable and respectable citizens largely predominate in the county, and could they be assured of protection, would soon put an end to the disorders. In closing this report, it gives me great pleasure to refer to the conduct of the detail under my command. Perhaps no part of the State Guard has ever passed through more severe test of discipline and endurance. Certainly none have ever responded more gallantly and faithfully to the demands made upon them. The march from Louisville to Hazard and back was particularly trying, the camp each night being but temporary, the men could not make themselves comfortable and suffered severely from the cold. The road is simply indescribable, being so rough that most of the command preferred walking to riding in the wagons provided. We frequently marched for hours in the water, the natural bed of the creeks being the only available way through the hills, and this was generally the best part of the road; at other times it took all hands to help the teams up the hills, or keep them from falling over precipices. Through it all the men were cheerful and uncomplaining, and though allowed every possible liberty, there was not a single serious breach of discipline, and but few even of a trivial sort. This, I think, speaks well for the training and reliability of the command from which the detail was taken.

The health of the detail....

Very respectfully, Your obedient servant, J. M. SOHAN, Captain Commanding.

With the departure of the troops returned the same chaotic conditions which had characterized the county previous to the term of court which they had been sent to protect. During the spring term, however, a number of indictments were found against law violators. This would, of course, bring the accused, their friends and many witnesses to court, at the following November term.

Judge Lilly refused to share the belief of the Governor that the Home Guards would be able to suppress disorders and properly protect the court. He failed to appear. An election for special judge resulted in the seating of Hon. W. L. Hurst as judge pro tem.

THE BATTLE OF HAZARD.

(NOVEMBER 7TH AND 8TH, 1889.)

Court had proceeded with unimportant business until the fourth day of the term.

Considerable disorder had occurred on the night of the third day of court, but actual hostilities did not open until the following morning.

During the forenoon a heavy volley of shots suddenly rang clear and sharp in the cold November air and echoed through the valley.

There was a momentary silence in the crowded court room. Every man looked at his neighbor, questioningly and uncertain. Then with one impulse judge, lawyers, jurors, officers and bystanders sprang to their feet, rushed for exits and into the street. There the crowd scattered like sheep in all directions, some to seek the protection of the walls of buildings, others to depart from town without the ceremony of a good-bye.

Not until after the first stampede had somewhat abated was it that the factions began to take cognizance of the situation and prepare plans for concerted action.

When the first volley fired, no one about the court house knew what had really happened. No one took the time to ask. It was instinctively assumed that it was the beginning of the long-expected general battle between the French and Eversole forces.

The shooting had been done by the owner of a glorious jag, and if cooler heads had prevailed a battle might have been averted, but once the factions had reached their arms and assembled, peace was out of the question. The instigator of the trouble, one Campbell, had been engaged with several others of his friends, in a game of cards, on a hill overlooking the village. The hill is known as the Graveyard Hill. In a spirit of excessive hilarity, produced by over-indulgence in fire-water, he had stepped to the side of a tree and fired his pistol. At the upper end of town one Davidson kept a store. At the reports of the pistol Davidson looked out of a rear window of his place of business. He saw Campbell standing on the hill waving his still smoking gun. Davidson procured his Winchester rifle, took deliberate aim, then fired. Campbell sank dead to the ground.

As soon as the panic-stricken crowd had left the court house the Eversoles rushed into it and took possession of it.

Two French men, Jesse Fields and Bob Profitt, found themselves isolated in a jury room on the second floor, while the court room proper was already occupied by their enemies, the Eversoles. The two were in a precarious situation and thoroughly realized it. There seemed but one chance for escape open to them--a leap through the windows into the yard below. They saw themselves outnumbered twenty to one. Resistance would have been folly and surrender did not appeal to them. Neither side had thus far in the "war" exhibited much respect for principles of civilized warfare.

The moment the Eversoles took possession of the rooms beyond, Fields and Profitt locked the door of their room and as noiselessly as possible hoisted one of the windows. On looking into the yard below they hesitated. It was a high jump, with many chances in favor of their breaking their necks, or at least a limb or two. But when the enemy attempted to break through the door all hesitation vanished. Both leaped and landed on the ground below without sustaining injury.

This daring leap had been perceived by the Eversoles. The two men were fired upon as they ran for life toward and into the jailer's residence for cover. This building, as well as the court house, was of brick. The two structures stood within fifteen feet of each other and fronted the same street. The Eversoles now passed their time in ventilating the thin brick walls of the little building. Fields and Profitt began to feel uncomfortably warm, but held the fort. They had an ample supply of ammunition and continued to pour volley upon volley into the windows and through the walls of the court house. All through the long afternoon the guns roared. Clouds of smoke hung low and heavy over the unfortunate town. Constant was the clatter of firearms. The incessant hiss of leaden missiles was interspersed with shouts and defiant curses while the silent terror of women and children was pitiful to behold. The whole presented a scene not easily forgotten by those who were compelled to witness it.

Thus far the battle had proved bloodless, notwithstanding the tremendous expenditure of ammunition. Neither of the belligerent armies had dared an open attack. They fought now as they had practically always fought during the war--from well-secreted places. Fortified in their quarters, they took care not to expose their persons. It was no senseless caution, for upon the appearance of an object anywhere, behind, in or under which a human being might be suspected, it became at once the target of many guns and received very close attention indeed.

With the approach of night Fields and his comrade felt that they must evacuate the premises or succumb to an attack by superior forces under cover of darkness, but to join their friends some distance away they must necessarily run a dangerous gauntlet. However, they preferred dying in the open to being caught like rats in a trap.

It was dark when the two desperate men started on their perilous journey. With heads bent down upon their breasts, like men facing a beating hail, they ran for their lives. Every gun of the enemy was trained upon them, and fired. Presently defiant yells from the French position announced to the crestfallen Eversoles that their prey had escaped them.

When the battle started French was absent from town. He arrived during the night.

All night long the battle continued with scarcely an intermission in the firing.

During the night Tom Smith and Jesse Fields succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the Eversoles and occupied the Graveyard Hill. When the first ray of dawn approached, Fields and Smith opened a terrific fire upon the Eversoles in the court house, the balls crashing through the windows, driving the occupants to seek safety by throwing themselves upon the floor.

During the early morning hours two of the Eversole men attempted to cross a street near the court house, when Fields and Smith opened fire upon them. One of the men, J. McKnight, was instantly killed, while his companion escaped. Smith and Fields used a sunken grave as a rifle pit and from a tombstone Smith took the rest for the shot that killed McKnight.

The strategic advantage of French's men perplexed the Eversoles, who, penned up in the court house, were rendered practically helpless. The fusilade was so continuous that an attempt to return the fire from the windows would have meant certain death. The balls crashed through the windows, tearing the wood casings to splinters and the shutters were completely shot away. The furniture in the court room was thrown about and knocked into atoms. The building, from which the Eversoles had expected so much as a point of vantage, proved a death trap. To retire from it the Eversoles appeared as anxious as they had been to take possession of it. Their retreat to the river bank was effected in safety, but to prevent attack while crossing the river, Green Morris and a companion remained concealed under the banks of the river. Fields and Smith on the Graveyard Hill were the first to see the Eversoles in retreat and started in pursuit. Approaching the hiding-place of Morris, the latter fired, wounding Fields severely in the arm and thus effectually checked further pursuit. If Smith and Fields had reached the river unharmed, the record of the fight might present an increased list of casualties, as both were men of great courage and good marksmanship.

On the records of the Perry Circuit Court appears an order of Special Judge Hurst, giving his reason for the unceremonious adjournment of court. It is an interesting document. Certainly Judge Hurst's reason for adjournment seems a valid one:

PERRY CIRCUIT COURT.

4th day Nov., Term 1889.

At this term of the Court there were two armed factions in the town of Hazard, the French and Eversole factions, antagonistic to each other.

On the second night of the Court, the acting judge was shot but not wounded (?) in the French end of the town, French not being in the town at the time, but some of his men were and the next evening at dusk a "dinamite" or other cartridge with burning fuse attached was thrown over the judge's room or house in which he stayed and exploded heavily on the other side of the house.

Court continued till the evening of the 4th day, when the two factions began heavy cross-firing at each other in earnest about and near the court house, which completely "correlled" the court, the jury, the officers and people in court for some time, and before the firing abated, the judge plainly seeing, that it was not intended that court should be further held, and it being impossible to further progress with the business and live, the court ordered the clerk to adjourn the court, and the non-combatants to save themselves as best they could. They did so, but one shot was fired at them from the Eversole quarters as they left.

The fighting continued through the next night and until about 9 o'clock the next day excepting some intervals of rest. The French side received reinforcement from Breathitt County. During this fight two men, friends of Eversoles, were killed in the battle, and it was rumored that one of the French party was badly wounded and perhaps killed and another one wounded.

The Eversole party claimed that they were destitute of ammunition next morning and retired from town without being injured thereby. The clerk left with his keys, the jury left, the judge remained till the next morning in the town and after the retreat of the Eversole party, when he received news as coming from the French side that he and the women and children could leave the town unmolested provided he did not go back to the court house, whereupon the court and some of the women and Commonwealth's attorney quietly marched away and in pursuance to the court's orders this court is hereby adjourned in course.

This order was signed at the August Special Term of the court 1890 and on the 11th day of August, 1890.

* * * * *

Immediately after the battle the factions scattered through the neighboring counties, scouting in small detachments, and continually shifting quarters.

A special term of the Perry Circuit Court was called for August, 1890. On the night of July 4th, however, a deed was perpetrated which was intended to and did block the business of the court.

The town was awakened by the shrill cry of "fire," the crackling and crashing of burning and falling timbers--the court house was a seething mass of fire, and the people could only look on as the structure succumbed to the consuming element. There was never any question as to the origin of the fire. It was the work of incendiaries. Fortunately, most of the records were saved.

Many of the feudists now began to tire of the constant scouting. There was not enough real fighting to make it interesting. Occasional ambuscades had lost their charm. Many longed for peace and home. Among these was Robin Cornett, an Eversole man. Pretending friends encouraged him to return to his home. He did so, and as day after day passed without the least mishap, he often visiting Hazard in apparent safety, he relaxed his vigilance, and fell,--a victim of relentless assassins.

One morning (July, 1890) Cornett, in company of his little brother, started to the field to cut oats. Finding the grain not ripe enough, he abandoned the field work and proceeded to the woods to peel logs. A tree, which he had cut, fell across a narrow ravine, elevating portions of the trunk several feet above the ground. He leaped upon it, ax in hand, when shots from the near bushes accomplished another foul assassination. Cornett sank dead upon the log, while his little brother ran for life and escaped.

There can be no doubt that Cornett's doom had been sealed the instant he returned home. The murder had been planned and was executed with cruel cunning and occupies a front rank among the many infamous assassinations, which have given this feud such notoriety.

At the special term of the Circuit Court, Judge Lilly appeared, accompanied by a detachment of State Guards, commanded by Adjutant-General Gaithers of Louisville, Ky. The court house had not been rebuilt and a large tent served the purpose. It soon became evident that the court meant business. A large number of deputy sheriffs were sworn in to supplant the inefficient Home Guards. These were at once disbanded and ordered to return the accoutrements they had received, but the few articles turned over were hardly worth the shipping expenses, many of the guns being broken.

Within a few days after court had begun, prisoners were brought into court as fast as indictments were found. The jail became so crowded that many prisoners were kept in a strongly guarded tent. As rapidly as the cases were called up and the accused were presented in court, they were transferred to the Clark County Circuit Court for trial. It was a wise and necessary step indeed. Not only would it have been impossible to secure qualified jurors in Perry County, but the attendance of the accused, their friends and witnesses would most probably have invited a clash between the contending factions.

The last days of the term of court, commonly called the "Blanket Court" had come and gone without the least disturbance, and the removal of the prisoners to the Winchester jail was also effected without mishap. The backbone of the war was at last broken. A strange, but welcome, calm succeeded turbulence, bloodshed, and anarchy.

A great change had come over the caged warriors. Disarmed and crowded in the narrow confines of a prison, they faced each other but the deadly Winchesters were no longer in reach. Fast in the clutches of the law, the law which for so long they had disregarded, evaded, shamefully violated, they now had ample opportunity for reflection and sober reasoning. The absorbing and very pertinent question: How to escape the punishment of the law worried them. It was a knotty problem indeed. The lions, made captives, were now tame and submissive. For the first few days after these foes met in prison, hatred and bitter feeling found vent in abusive epithets and fistic encounters, but the realization of helplessness reminded them of the need of making friends out of enemies. They realized their power to destroy each other in the courts, but would not the destroyer himself be destroyed? Revenge could only open more cell doors, or furnish culprits for the gallows. It was this prospect of conviction, of punishment, which effected at last what bloodshed could never have accomplished--it reconciled in a measure the enemies of old, some of them actually becoming friends, and thus again effectually clogging the legal machinery. The necessity of self-preservation brought matters around in such shape that we find men who had opposed each other in deadly combat, fighting side by side the legal battles in court. None of the prisoners was allowed bail, but after removal to Clark County, one after another of the accused demanded examining trials and upon being allowed bail, readily executed bonds and returned to their homes and families, which many of them had not seen for months.

With the removal of French, Judge Combs and others of the feudists returned an era of peace which continued uninterrupted until 1894, with the exception of a street fight in the town of Hazard between some of the Eversole faction and Jesse Fields, a French follower.

In this battle some of the Eversoles and Fields were wounded, and a colored bystander was killed by a stray bullet.

In 1894 occurred the last assassination as the direct outcome of the feud.

Tired with a life that now separated old Judge Combs from his family and friends, he determined to and did return to Hazard to round out the declining years of his life.

He might have lived in perfect peace and security elsewhere, but the humble mountain home in the village of Hazard, so dear to him through the associations of his youth and manhood, now attracted him more than any other spot on earth. He could not bring himself to desert it once and for all, in the chilly winter of old age.

Notwithstanding his faults, and his record during the feud shows him to have been at fault on more than one occasion, he had a host of friends, and these tried hard to dissuade him from his purpose. But he had formed his resolve, and refused to be guided by well-meant advice.

There is something very pathetic in this old man's attachment for a home which, for years, had offered him danger instead of peace, sorrow instead of happiness.

He had visited his home surreptitiously on several occasions since his removal therefrom. On one of these visits he had narrowly escaped death by assassination. This attempt upon his life should have convinced him that his doom was sealed, that his death had been decreed. Yet, notwithstanding all this, Judge Combs returned to Hazard to reside. But a little while afterwards he succumbed to the assassins' bullets.

The murder was committed in broad-open daylight, in plain view of many townspeople, and, also from ambush.

At the moment the fatal shot was fired, the old man was engaged with several of his friends and neighbors in commonplace conversation.

Within a few feet of the group of men stood a fence enclosing a lot planted with corn, which, together with the thick and tall growth of weeds and bushes, offered the assassins admirable opportunity to approach their victim to within a few feet without danger of discovery.

No one noticed the slight rustling of the corn blades. No one saw the hand that parted them skilfully to make way for the gun which accomplished its deadly work. There was a puff of smoke, a loud report and Judge Combs reeled. Suddenly he straightened himself up, stood apparently undecided for a moment, then walked across the street toward home. At its threshold he sank to the ground and expired without a groan.

The murderers had evidently been determined to guard against any possible blunders which had, on former occasions, saved the old man's life. For from the moment the shot was fired up to the time the old man fell dead, the murderous gun continually covered him, ready for instant service should it appear that the first shot had not been fatal.

After the victim had fallen to the ground, the principal of the assassins deliberately walked to the rear of the lot. Here he was joined by one of his confederates. A third had already opened fire and continued a fusilade from across the river for the evident purpose of pretending the presence of a large force and thus by intimidation to prevent pursuit.

The three confederates then proceeded calmly down the river. Their retreat was deliberate. At no time did they exhibit the slightest apprehension of danger or fear of pursuers.

The utter recklessness and boldness with which the crime had been committed completely stupefied the townspeople. Intelligent, prompt action was out of the question for a time. Not until the murderers had had a long start did it become possible to organize a posse.

At last the fugitives were sighted by the pursuers. A general exchange of shots followed. One of the outlaws was wounded. He continued his flight with difficulty.

A running fight was now kept up for a great distance. Then the fugitives disappeared in the dense mountain forests and the chase was given up. But one member of the posse was wounded.

Several of the eye-witnesses of the tragedy and members of the pursuing posse had recognized Joe Adkins, Jesse Fields and one Boon Frazier as the fugitives. Joe Adkins was the man who had fired the fatal shot which took the life of the old man Combs.

The three parties mentioned were in due time indicted. Adkins and Fields were arrested. Frazier was never caught.

The cases against Adkins and Fields were transferred to another district in Kentucky for trial. The best legal talent of the state participated in the famous trial. Honorable W. C. P. Breckinridge, a lawyer and orator of national fame, had been retained as counsel for the defence.

Fields and Adkins had been French men all through the feud, in fact, had been among his most trusted lieutenants since its commencement. Rumor, therefore, quickly associated the name of French with the murder of Judge Combs. French stoutly denied any complicity in this affair. Then, like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, came the startling intelligence that Tom Smith, another French warrior, had given out a confession which seriously compromised French.