Historian Says Breathitt Was Bloody, Just Don't Call It A 'Feud'

The notorious conflict between the Hatfield and the McCoy families of West Virginia and Kentucky is often remembered as America’s most famous feud, but it was relatively brief and subdued compared to the longer and more numerous instances of individual and mass violence in Breathitt County, Kentucky.  In his book Bloody Breathitt - Politics and Violence in The Appalachian South, historian Bob Hutton examines this turbulent period in the county’s history and explores the reasons the violence was often characterized in popular media as a feud.