We left off last week with hundreds of militia banding together to exact revenge on John Neville, the Federal Inspector of Revenue in western Pennsylvania. At first a company of militia had ridden to his house, resulting in Neville killing at least one and wounding four others. This caused hundreds to return the next day, July 17, 1794, and burn his home to the ground, despite the property being defended by a dozen federal soldiers. The defending soldiers were released, as were Federal Marshal David Lenox and Neville’s son Presley, who had been held prisoner during the fighting. When Lenox and Neville tried to return to Pittsburgh, they faced drunken militiamen trying to attack them. They got to the city, where they found General Neville. The general had left his home before the battle, knowing that if captured, he could be tortured or killed. He had wisely stayed in Pittsburgh at the home of a friend.
Pittsburgh Standoff
The militia had succeeded in taking some revenge. But many were even angrier because their commander, Major McFarland, had been killed in the attack on Neville's home. The rebels descended on Pittsburgh and threatened to burn the town unless Neville finally resigned his commission and Marshall Lenox turned over any outstanding warrants. The rebel militia camped outside Pittsburgh was estimated at over 1000 men. Negotiations went on for days as they attempted to satisfy the angry militiamen. A local lawyer named Hugh Henry Brackenridge tried to negotiate a settlement with the rebels. He attended a hearing before the rebel committee. The main point of contention was over whether the marshal would return the summonses that he had already served on locals, back to authorities in Philadelphia.
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| Washington leads the Militia, 1794 |
During this debate, the rebels brought in Robert Johnson, the same revenue agent who had been tarred and feathered a few years earlier. Johnson accepted the gravity of the situation and agreed to resigning his position as a revenue agent. That night, during a brutal thunderstorm, Marshal Lenox and General Neville escaped out of Pittsburgh and rode east, headed for Philadelphia.
Brackenridge remained in discussions with the rebels, who had set up a headquarters at a nearby church. His goal was to convince the rebels that this was not going to end well. The federal government would have to respond to this rebellion. Rather than back down, however, the rebellion only seemed to grow in strength and size.
It seemed that those who lived in Pittsburgh itself opposed the rebellion, while all of the communities surrounding them were in support. Several weeks after the battle at Neville's home, Bower Hill, rebels seized the federal mail and found letters from a number of Pittsburgh residents condemning the rebellion. In a reaction, the rebel leaders called for a militia assembly at Braddock’s field on August 1. An estimated 7000 armed militia turned out with the intention of burning Pittsburgh. They began marching toward the town, but were eventually dissuaded by moderate voices that told them that Pittsburgh had agreed to banish the letter writers who had condemned the rebellion.
Albert Gallatin
While things seemed to be spinning out of control, there were moderates who were attempting to tamp down the growing violence. One important voice was that of Albert Gallatin. He will become more important in the history of the United States, so perhaps now is a good time to introduce him.
Gallatin was born in Switzerland in 1761. He spoke French as his primary language. He came from a wealthy merchant family but his father died when he was only four years old, and his mother died when he was nine. A family friend stepped in to raise him. When he was twelve, he was sent to the Academy of Geneva, where he became a great fan of the enlightenment. When the American Revolution began, Gallatin wanted to be a part of it. He and a fellow student left school in 1780 at age 19. They travelled to France, where they met with Benjamin Franklin. He gave them letters of introduction before they sailed for Boston.
Boston was not terribly interesting for two young men who were excited about the American frontier. Gallatin moved to Machias in the Maine wilderness for a year, where he ran a trading post. He then returned to Boston where he worked briefly as a French tutor at Harvard College.
By this time the Revolution had ended. Becoming bored again with Boston, Gallatin got involved in the post-war land boom out west. He teamed up with a French land speculator who wanted to sell western lands to Europeans. In 1785, Gallatin moved to Virginia and became a naturalized citizen of the state. He also married a Richmond girl, who was the daughter of a boarding house owner where he was staying. Gallatin hoped to become rich with the western land boom. Instead, he made his fortune the old fashioned way, he inherited it. A year after moving to Virginia, he received a small fortune left to him by a relative in Europe. He used that money to buy 400 acres of land in Fayette County, Pennsylvania and built a large stone house, which he dubbed Friendship Hill.
He became active in Pennsylvania politics, favoring the more radical factions in the state. In 1788, Gallatin served as a delegate to the state convention that the anti-federalist faction called to recommend amendments to the proposed US Constitution. Over the years, Gallatin gained a reputation as a strong supporter of the anti-federalist, and later the Democratic-Republican factions in government.
In 1790, the people of Fayette County sent him to serve as their representative in the US House. He quickly fell in the faction controlled by James Madison and also became a leading opponent of many of Alexander Hamilton’s proposals, including the excise bill. Gallatin also became a leading voice at many of the gatherings in western Pennsylvania opposed to the tax. Gallatin’s views against the tax were in sync with those of the people he represented. At the Pittsburgh Convention in 1792, Gallatin served as secretary and signed the resolution calling for the refusal to have any dealings with anyone who took a position to collect the whiskey tax.
This put Gallatin in direct contention with President Washington. In response to the Pittsburgh Convention Hamilton got the president to issue a proclamation admonishing anyone who was organizing to obstruct the operation of the excise law.
The people of Pennsylvania, however, were quite happy with Gallatin’s positions. In 1793 the state legislature appointed him to the US Senate. That same year, he married Hannah Nicholson, the daughter of Commodore James Nicholson, who had been a hero of the Continental Navy. Gallatin’s first wife had died a few years earlier, shortly after they had moved to Pennsylvania.
Gallatin took his seat in the Senate in late 1793. Almost immediately, the Senate received a petition from several Federalists in Pennsylvania objecting to the seating based on the fact that Gallatin had not been a US citizen for nine years, as required by the Constitution. He had taken his oath of citizenship to Virginia eight years earlier. The issue was not cut and dry because supporters argued he had expressed his desire to become a citizen in 1783, ten years earlier, and that was the date that should count. The Senate sent the matter to committee to review the facts, then called for a vote. The Senators ruled that Gallatin’s election was void by a vote of 14-12. Gallatin had to leave the Senate and return home.
He arrived only a month before the battle of Bower Hill caused the region to explode. In mid-August of 1794, about a month after the militia had burned Neville’s home, Gallatin served as secretary for a conference at Parkinson’s Ferry, arguing with the radicals that there was not possibility of military success against the federal government and that they should be looking for a political solution. While Gallatin opposed the tax, he asserted that it was constitutional, and the people could not simply use violence to oppose laws that they did not like.
A couple of weeks later, Gallatin gave an hours-long speech to a hostile crowd, trying to explain why this rebellion was different from the American Revolution, and why they needed to support the rule of law.
Federal Response
Gallatin was pushing the idea of submission because he knew what was coming and hoped to avert it. As early as 1792, following the first attacks on revenue officers in the region, Alexander Hamilton had been pushing for “vigorous and decisive measures” or, he said “the spirit of disobedience will naturally extend and the authority of the government will be prostrate.” He called on President Washington to issue a stern warning and then send in federal troops if the people did not comply. President Washington issued his public proclamation in September of that year, but left out Hamilton’s proposed threats of military force, something that Attorney General Edmund Randolph recommended deleting.
Hamilton viewed this ongoing confrontation as a test of the new federal government. The government had to show it was willing to use force to enforce its laws. He saw this rebellion as an opportunity to demonstrate the federal government’s power and resolve. He characterized the protesters as committing treason, that they were a disease that threatened to destroy the Union. Hamilton had agreed to a few changes, such as a reduction in the amount of the tax and the change that allowed local courts to hear tax cases. But he adamantly opposed further appeasement, such as removing Neville as revenue agent. This would be interpreted as weakness and would only encourage more defiance of federal laws.
Normally, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson would be expected to balance Hamilton’s more extreme views. But by this time Jefferson was gone. He had resigned as Secretary of State at the end of 1793. He was sick of the constant political battles with Hamilton, and believed that the President was increasingly supporting much of Hamilton’s agenda.
Attorney General Edmund Randolph had become Secretary of State at the time. He expressed deep concerns over the use of military force, at least before any diplomatic or judicial options were exhausted. Even if it was hard, the government had to be based on the affection of the people, not military force. If there were crimes committed, they should be handled by the judiciary, with due process, not through the use of armed soldiers just going around and crushing entire communities.
The new attorney General William Bradford, and Secretary of War, Henry Knox, both generally sided with Hamilton’s view. Bradford viewed the insurrection as treason and a threat to the existence of the government itself. Knox stressed that the government needed to deploy overwhelming force to convince the people of the new government’s authority. Knox very much pushed the idea of overwhelming force, so that the matter did not drag out or give the rebels any hope of an eventual compromise to end the dispute. He wanted the Whiskey Rebellion to be in contrast to Shays Rebellion, where the government did not have the power to put down the opposition.
Raising an Army
President Washington seemed more reluctant than most of his cabinet to use military force. He had never been a fan of this sort of violent and destructive protest, even when he was on the other side. Two decades earlier, Washington had condemned the destruction of British tea in Boston.
In this case, Washington believed the excise law was a legitimate one, and that he had a duty to make sure it was enforced. He accepted that it was always a last resort, but his fear of appearing as a military tyrant gave him pause.
After learning about the destruction of Bower Hill in July, Washington met with Pennsylvania Governor Mifflin. The governor believed that the lawlessness could be handled by the judiciary and calling out an army was not necessary. Unsatisfied with Mifflin’s assurances, Washington met with James Wilson, at that time a Justice on the US Supreme Court and also a resident of Pennsylvania. Wilson advised the president that the rebellion was too powerful to handle with judicial proceedings alone.
That gave Washington the political cover to issue an order mobilizing militia. He authorized the mobilization of 13,000 militiamen from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. It would take time to assemble the army so he also gave the rebels until September 1 to disperse and submit to the law.
Peace Commission
The following week, Washington also dispatched a Peace Commission to meet with the rebels. The Commission was made up of Attorney General Bradford, Senator James Ross, a federalist who had replaced Gallatin in the Senate after the removal over citizenship, and Judge Jasper Yeates, who sat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and was also an ardent federalist. None of the three men were very sympathetic to the rebel cause. Also joining the Commission on the trip were two men appointed by Governor Mifflin: Pennsylvania Chief Justice Thomas McKean, and Congressman William Irvine. These two men were more sympathetic to the cause of the rebels, but still agreed that there had to be submission.
The commission travelled west and met up with the leaders of the rebellion on April 28. This was the same meeting where Gallatin gave his speech calling for the people to submit to federal law. The commissioners demanded complete submission and that all the rebels stand down. After a contentious debate the committee of rebels voted 34 to 23 in favor of submission. The commissioners expressed concern that the vote was not unanimous and had been conducted by secret ballot. It seemed clear that none of the rebels were inclined to make themselves a target for federal retribution, but that the resistance and violence would only continue.
The commissioners then insisted that every male age 18 or older sign an oath of submission on September 11. Turnout was dismally low, in some cases because people believed they would face retribution from their neighbors if they signed the oath.
The commission reported back to President Washington that they did not believe the region would submit and that order could not be restored without military coercion. This seemed to be the expected result since the militia army was already gathering and preparing during this time. Bradford used his time as a commissioner to gather intelligence on the leadership, numbers, and locations of rebels to provide to the federal army.
The Army Marches
By September 25, the army was ready to march. Washington personally led the militia army. He appointed as military commander of the army the Governor of Virginia, and Washington’s old cavalry commander, Light Horse Harry Lee. The right wing of the army was made up of militia from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and commanded by their governors. Pennsylvania Governor Mifflin had been a Continental General. Governor Richard Howell of New Jersey had only risen to the rank of captain during the war.
The left wing, made up of militia from Maryland and Virginia was under the command of Maryland Congressman Richard Smith, a former Continental Colonel, and General Daniel Morgan of Virginia.
Alexander Hamilton also travelled with the army. Secretary of War Henry Knox, missed the expedition, choosing instead to attend to personal business in Maine.
The Pennsylvania and New Jersey militia used Carlisle as a staging area. The Maryland militia camped at Williamsport, Maryland. The Virginia militia made camp at Cumberland Maryland. Washington reviewed the troops in early October, before leaving the army at Bedford, to return to Philadelphia. He turned over full military command to General Lee.
As the armies reached western Pennsylvania. Then nothing. All the rebels went home and simply said, what rebellion? Nothing to see here. No one wanted to take on the federal militia army.
This left the soldiers without a war to fight. The leaders believed that the violence would only reappear after they left. Instead they opted to make arrests. Coordinated squads of cavalry were deployed on the night of November 13th to arrest the alleged leaders of the rebellion. The army rounded up around 300 men, who were held in various places, many simply herded together into open pens. Complaints began almost immediately that the arrests were done without warrants, that the army had disregarded amnesty promises already given, that many of the arrests seemed arbitrary and included people who had actually supported the government’s efforts to restore order.
Because there was no army to fight, General Lee dismissed most of the militia by November 17, just four days after the mass arrests. Only 1500 volunteers under General Morgan remained to ensure that no problems flared up again over the winter.
The next problem was that armies don’t do a very good job doing law enforcement. Officers interrogated the prisoners, but were unable to do much with them. No one was willing to confess to anything or provide witness testimony against anyone else.
In the end, they released almost all of their prisoners. They took about 20 men back to Philadelphia for trial. These men were marched through the streets of Philadelphia with the sign "insurgent" hung around their necks. But actually convicting any of them for treason or sedition proved nearly impossible. In the end, only two men were ever convicted. Neither of them were considered leaders in the movement. They were described as simpletons or insane, probably not bright enough to refuse giving incriminating testimony against themselves. In the end President Washington pardoned both of the men.
The government faced criticism as there was some looting by the militia army, and destruction of property. Most of the complaints came from the Democratic Republicans. The militia army however, had its intended effect. Farmers still effectively evaded the excise tax by hiding their distilleries. Several thousand rebels moved further west into Ohio territory to avoid further interactions with the government. But the open violent attacks on government officials doing their jobs came to an end.
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Next Episode 387 The Jay Treaty (coming soon)
Previous Episode 385 The Whiskey Rebellion
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Further Reading
Websites
The Whiskey Rebellion https://www.ttb.gov/public-information/whiskey-rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/the-first-president/whiskey-rebellion
BRIGADIER GENERAL JOHN NEVILLE 1731 - 1803 https://www.oldsaintlukes.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/BRIGADIER-GENERAL-JOHN-NEVILLE-1731-1803.pdf
Cooke, Jacob E. “THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION: A RE-EVALUATION.” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, vol. 30, no. 3, 1963, pp. 316–46. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27770195.
Davis, Jeffrey A. “Guarding the Republican Interest: The Western Pennsylvania Democratic Societies and the Excise Tax.” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, vol. 67, no. 1, 2000, pp. 43–62. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27774247
Kohn, Richard H. “The Washington Administration’s Decision to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion.” The Journal of American History, vol. 59, no. 3, 1972, pp. 567–84. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1900658.
Krom, Cynthia L., and Stephanie Krom. “THE WHISKEY TAX OF 1791 AND THE CONSEQUENT INSURRECTION: ‘A WICKED AND HAPPY TUMULT.’” The Accounting Historians Journal, vol. 40, no. 2, 2013, pp. 91–113. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43486736.
Long, Ronald W. “THE PRESBYTERIANS AND THE WHISKEY REBELLION.” Journal of Presbyterian History (1962-1985), vol. 43, no. 1, 1965, pp. 28–36. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23325997
Nester, William. “The Whiskey Rebellion.” The Hamiltonian Vision, 1789-1800: The Art of American Power During the Early Republic, University of Nebraska Press, 2012, pp. 72–74. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1djmhp3.17.
Rich, Bennett M. “Washington and the Whiskey Insurrection.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 65, no. 3, 1941, pp. 334–52. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20087395.
Whitten, David O. “An Economic Inquiry into the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.” Agricultural History, vol. 49, no. 3, 1975, pp. 491–504. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3741786.
Free eBooks
(from archive.org unless noted)
Brackenridge, H. H. Incidents of the Insurrection in the Western Parts of Pennsylvania, in the year 1794, Philadelphia: John McCulloch, 1795.
Brackenridge, H.M. History of the Western Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania: Commonly Called the Whiskey Insurrection, 1794, Pittsburgh: W.S. Haven, 1859.
Davidson Robert A Sermon on the Freedom and Happiness of the United States of America, Preached in Carlisle, on the 5th Oct. 1794, Philadelphia: Samuel H. Smith, 1794.
Wiley, Richard T. Sim Greene, a Narrative of the Whisky Insurrection; being a setting forth of the memoirs of the late David Froman, Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co. 1906.
Wiley, Richard T. The Whisky Insurrection: A General View, Elizabeth, PA; Herald Printing House, 1912.
Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)*
Baldwin, Leland D. Whiskey Rebels: The Story of a Frontier Uprising, Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1968.
Boyd, Steven R. The Whiskey Rebellion: Past and Present Perspectives, Greenwood Press, 1985.
Chernow, Ron Alexander Hamilton, Penguin Press, 2004.
Chernow, Ron Washington, A Life, Penguin Press, 2010.
Chervinsky, Lindsay M. The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, Belknap Press, 2020.
Hogeland, William The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America's Newfound Sovereignty, Scribner, 2006.
McDonald, Forrest, The Presidency of George Washington, Univ of Kansas Press, 1974.
Meacham, Jon Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Random House, 2012.
Miller, John C. Alexander Hamilton and the Growth of the New Nation, Routledge, 2017.
Myrsiades, Linda Backcountry Democracy and the Whiskey Insurrection: The Legal Culture and Trials, 1794-1795, Univ. of Ga. Press, 2024.
Nester, William The Hamiltonian Vision, 1789-1800, Potomac Books, 2012.
Randall, Willard Sterne Thomas Jefferson: A Life, Henry Holt and Co. 1993.
Slaughter, Thomas P. The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution, Oxford Univ. Press, 1986.
Unger, Harlow G. "Mr. President": George Washington and the Making of the Nation's Highest Office, Da Capo Press, 2013.
* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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