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Frank Phillips struck back. Leading raids into West Virginia and seizing eleven more prisoners. Phillips shot two of them in the head.

Eight Hatfields were tried for murdering the McCoy brothers, found guilty and given prison terms. Ellison Mounts was convicted of killing Randolph McCoy’s daughter and sentenced to death. Mounts boasted that Cap would free him at the last minute.
Governor Buckner set the hanging for February 18, 1890. Five thousand spectators gathered in Pikeville despite a Kentucky law forbidding public executions. As a black hood was placed over his head, Mounts cried out, “They made me do it, the Hatfields made me do it.”

Devil Anse Hatfield missed out on the economic boom that followed the arrival of the railroad. Hatfield moved his family out of the Tug Valley to a high mountain ridge. Yet he continued to place lookouts in the windows of his home to guard against an attack.