Keith Blalock's mother had married Austin Coffey, when Keith was very young. Austin had raised him. Austin was a Union sympathizer and fed Keith and his men whenever they came home, but regimenWilliam and Rueben Coffey were for the South and conscripting men for the South. Of course, Keith was recruiting for the North. Deserters hid in these mountains from both North and South, and made up a band of robbers and looters. In 1865 Blalock and his men in Confederate uniforms came from Tennessee to Boone to steal horses and settle accounts with those they felt had wronged them. They went to get Reuben Coffey first. He was not at home. The next stop on their list was the home of William Coffey, brother of Austin Coffey, who had raised Keith. They forced William to go with them to James Gragg's mill. Blalock did not want to do the dirty work of killing his step-father's brother, so a man named Perkins shot him. Then they escaped. This brought Col. Avery's battalion on the scene. They found Austin Coffey at McCaleb Coffey's house in Coffey Gap. McCaleb was a brother of Austin Coffey. They arrested Austin Coffey. This was Sunday, 26 FEB 1865. His body was found in the woods a week later. The men, who killed Austin were forgiven...but I'll bet not by Austin!
To get away from his neighbors, who disliked him because of his Union sympathies, Keith and Sam retreated still further up under the Grandfather Mountain and lived in a rail pen. They were pursued even there. On one occasion Keith was shot in the left arm. He took refuge with some hogs which had "bedded up" under the rocks. It was at this time Keith became a recruiting officer for a Michigan regi- ment stationed in Tennessee. Whether true or not, Blalock believed that Robert Green was in the party that had wounded him. Accordingly, when he and some of his comrades met Green one day while he was driving his wagon from the Globe to Blowing Rock, he shot Green as he ran down the side of the mountain, breaking his thigh. Green's friends say that Blalock's crowd left him lying as he had fallen, and that he managed to regain his wagon, turn it around and drive back home. Blalock's friends say that after he had wounded Green, shooting him through his wagon body and afterwards bragging on his marksmanship, he went to him and finding him unconscious, took him to his wagon, put him in it, turned the wagon around and started the team in the direction of the Green's house.
In 1864 Keith had a "battle" with Jesse Moore in Carroll Moore's orchard. Jesse was wounded in the heel. Keith had an eye shot out. Pat, a son of "Daniel Moore, had a thigh broken in the same fight. These activities soon brought some of Colonel Avery's battalion on the scene. A party of Captain James Marlow's company went to Caleb Coffey's house in the Coffey Gap. There they found Austin Coffey. John B. Boyd recognized and arrested Coffey. Boyd left his prisoner with Marlow's men and went on home in the Globe. That was Sunday, 26 FEB 1865. Nothing was seen of Austin Coffey after that until his body was discovered a week later in the woods by searchers sent out by his widow. J. Filmore Coffey, son of Austin Coffey heard many stories about the death of his father. In 1882 he stopped at the house of a man named John Walker, near Shelby. When Walker learned Coffey's name, and that he was the youngest son of Austin Coffey, Walker told him the story of what happened to his father. Walker had been a member of Marlow's company when Austin was turned over to them. They took him to a vacant house know as the Tom Henly place, about half way between Shull's Mills and Blowing Rock. There a fire was kindled. Coffey went to sleep on the floor before it. While Austin Coffey was sleeping, John Walker was detailed to kill him, but refused. Robert Glass volunteered. He shot the old man through the head as the old man slept. The body was taken to a laurel and ivy thicket near by and hidden. One week later a dog was seen with a human hand in his mouth. A search revealed Austin Coffey's body.
About this time Levi Coffey, a son of Elisha, threw in his fortunes with Blalock and his companions. When Benjamin Green and his men tried to arrest Levi at Mrs. Fox's house, Levi ran out of the house and was shot in the shoulder. He escaped. This was during the summer of 1864. This caused the bushwhackers, as Blalock and his followers were called, when they were not called robbers out- right, to turn against the Greens. Finding that Lott Green, a son of Amos, was at his home near Blowing Rock, they went there at night to arrest or kill him. Lott was expecting a physician to visit him that night. When someone knocked on the door, he, thinking that the doctor had arrived, unsuspectingly opened it. Finding who his visitors really were, he drew back, slamming the door. It just so happened that there were at that time in the house with Lott, his brother, Joseph; his brother-in-law, Henry Henley and L. L. Green. The bushwhackers were said to have been Keith Blalock, Levi Coffey, Sampson Calloway, Edmund Ivy, and a man named Gardner. Blalock demanded that all in the house surrender, whereupon Henley asked what treatment would be accorded them in case they surrendered. Blalock is said to have answered: "As you deserve, damn you!" Henley then slipped his gun through a crack of the door and fired, wounding Calloway in the side.The bushwhackers then retired, and the Green party who followed, saw blood. Calloway was left at the house of John Walker, two miles above Shull's Mills. Henley led the party at Green's house, excepting L.L. Green, to Walker's, and surrounded it. Henley was at the rear and shot Edmund Ivy as he ran out, killing him. Blalock called to a woman to open the gate, and Mrs. Medie Walker, born McHaarg, did so. Through this gate Blalock and his company escaped.
A little later on, 26 FEB 1865, Capt. James Marlow's infantry, expecting to unit with a detachment of cavalry under Nelson Miller at Valle Crucis, went to Austin Coffey's house and arrested Thomas Wright and Austin. Alexander Johnson, who claimed to be a recruiting officer for Kirk, had just left and gone to McCaleb's house. The infantry followed, taking Wright with them, but Wright's wife and Blalock's mother, then Mrs. Austin Coffey, went a nigh-way and gave warning to the inmates of McCaleb's house before the infantry arrived by calling out in a loud voice that the "rebels" were coming. There- upon, Johnson dashed out of the door, and although fired on, escaped unhurt. Most of the infantry followed Johnson, but John Boyd, in charge of four or five men, entered the house, where they found Sampson Calloway. He had been moved from the Walker house, which Henley had attacked. Calloway got into bed and was not arrested, but Austin Coffey was arrested, as before related. All now agree that Austin Coffey did not deserve his fate. He was a big hearted man, who had fed Confederates as well as Union men at his home. He was a Union man, but not active in arresting Southern sympathizers. He had tried to prevent the raids on Lott Green's and Carroll Moore's houses.
Reuben Coffey was sick of living in a turmoil with his neighbors. He left the Globe and moved to a house on Meat Camp. Needing some household items, which he had left at his Globe home, Reuben and his daughter, Millie, returned during the winter. Millie was riding a white horse. The robbers had taken all of McCaleb Coffey's horses, and when the white horse appeared, McCaleb threw a "grise" of corn over his back to be taken to Elisha Coffey's mill by Millie. On their way down the mountain Reuben and his daughter met two men, who said they were from Michigan and had escaped from prison. They were not in uniform; neither were they armed. Reuben had a gun, and arrested them. He took them by McCaleb Coffey's house to David Miller's, one mile away, hoping to get Miller to go with him and them to Camp Mast on Cove Creek. Miller excused himself. Reuben went on alone with his prisoners. When they got to the intersection of the turnpike with the old Morganton Road, about two miles above Shull's Mills, one of the prisoners called Reuben's attention to some rude benches standing on one side of the road. When he looked in the direction indicated, one seized his gun, while his companion struck Reuben a blow on the back of the head with a heavy stick. In the ensuing scuffle, the two overcame Reuben and took his gun away from him. At that moment, after having tried to shoot him and failing only because the cap snapped, they heard Wilson Beech, a boy, returning at a gallop from the mill. The prisoners ran off and escaped. The boy later remem- bered that he was working in the field at McCaleb Coffey's with Polly Hawkins as a helper, when they saw James C. Coffey coming down the road on foot. He said, "Hurrah! The war is over!"
When Keith Blalock was told that John B. Boyd had arrested Austin Coffey and that Coffey was dead, he swore he would kill Boyd if it took forty years after the war to do so. It did not take long. On the evening of 8 FEB 1866, when Boyd and William T. Blair were going from a house on which they had been at work, they met Blalock and Thomas Wright in a narrow path at the head of the Globe. Blalock asked, "Is that you, Boyd?" Boyd answered "Yes!" at the same time striking Blalock with a cane. The blow was aimed at his head. Blalock caught the blow on his left wrist,ran backwards a few steps and shot Boyd dead with a seven-shooting Sharp's rifle. Keith made Blair turn Boyd's body over. Finding that Boyd was dead, he left the scene. He stopped at Noah White's house to tell him what had been done. Blalock was examined by the Provost Marshal at Morganton. He sent the case to Judge Mitchell at Statesville. Governor Holden pardoned him before trial.
Before his death, Keith had been blinded in one eye, and his arm had been shot off at the elbow. On 11 AUG 1913 he got into a fight with several men. His escape route from the men was an old railway hand-car. He was unable to control it, and was killed in an accident.
William McKesson "Keith" Blalock was born 21 JUN 1836 at Avery County, NC. He was married to Sarah Malinda Pritchard on 21 JUN 1856 in Caldwell County, NC. He died near Montezuma, NC (in the area of Raleigh, NC) 11 AUG 1913. Malinda was born in 1842. She died 09 MAR 1901 They had four sons:
