The Whiskey Rebellion

by William Hogeland

  The military buildup. For the politics of the first U.S.-Indian war, leading to the Militia Act, see Kohn. Progress—or lack of it—in constructing Fort Fayette can be followed in Henry Knox’s increasingly exasperated letters to quartermaster-entrepreneur Isaac Craig and Craig’s evasively polite replies, in the Isaac Craig Papers and the Craig-Neville Papers. In Incidents, Brackenridge refers to Pitt’s dismantling.

  Attacks on collectors. The John Connor story is told by Findley, who claims that it was Neville’s idea to send Connor to serve the warrants and accuses Neville of intending the service to be unsuccessful. The attack on Wilson is reported by Neville to Clymer in a letter of 11/17/1791, in the Wolcott Papers—in which Neville also calls for armed force.

  Brackenridge in politics. My description of the Green Tree petition is based on resolutions of the meeting, Pennsylvania Archives. Brackenridge’s backstory is drawn mainly from Newlin and Marder. For Madison’s ideas about representation, I’m inspired by Wills, in Explaining America, Part Four. The story of Brackenridge’s meeting Sabina Wolfe is told in most Brackenridge sources; the possible visual effect of Sabina’s leaping the fence was suggested via e-mail by Barbara Bockrath, a living-history expert and secretary of the Oliver Miller Homestead Association. For Brackenridge’s political writing, see his Gazette Publications.

  Hamilton’s response to complaints. For Brackenridge’s argument against the whiskey tax, see “Thoughts on the Excise Law” in Marder’s edition of Incidents. It is the insight of Elkins and McKitrick (p. 282) that the creative phase of Hamilton’s career approached its eclipse in 1792. For Hamilton’s response to the petitions, see his “Report on the Difficulties in the Execution of the Act Laying Duties on Distilled Spirits,” 3/6/1792. I rely in part on Fennell’s analyses of the effects on small distillers of Hamilton’s proposed changes in the law and the workings of the commissary system; Fennell cites Albert Gallatin, as Jefferson’s treasury secretary, for the ultimate reduction of real tax to a sixth of a cent. The commissary system would not take full effect immediately—but Hamilton’s “Report on Opposition to Internal Duties,” 8/5/94, makes clear that he saw new army-buying rules as part of the excise enforcement efforts of 1792.

  The tax law of 1792. In Statutes at Large: “An Act Concerning the Duties on Spirits Distilled within the United States,” 5/8/1792. Debate can be followed in Annals of Congress, 4/30/92; some congressmen saw the purpose of the new bill as making it easier for people to pay. Findley is the source for his own objections to the tax, the debate, and his feeling that he’d made an enemy of Hamilton.

  Hamilton’s eagerness to use force. As the next chapter shows in detail, in the fall of 1792, Hamilton was pushing Washington for a military solution; as early as that July, in response to complaints about noncompliance in North Carolina, Hamilton asked about the readiness of the Virginia militia to act against rioters in North Carolina; in that letter he says, “The thing must be brought to an issue; and will be” (Papers, 7/25/92). This was two years before rebel militias attacked Bower Hill and marched on Braddock’s Field; tax resistance had involved only protest meetings, failure to register, and a few criminal acts. Hamilton was linking nationalist finance policy and the domestic use of military force as early as the Newburgh crisis of 1783; for his thoughts at the Constitutional Convention on the necessarily coercive role of government and arms, see Farrand, Yates’s and Madison’s notes, 6/18/87. Kohn is informative on tendencies toward militarism in Hamilton’s career and explicit in describing Hamilton as pursuing as early as 1792 the use of military power to enforce the whiskey tax. In Chapter Five of Founding Brothers, Ellis connects Hamilton’s late-career military ambitions with his behavior in suppressing the Whiskey Rebellion. For more on this issue, see Chapter Nine.

  CHAPTER SIX: TOM THE TINKER

  The Mingo Creek Association. I follow Fennell’s description of the militias as offering the only official forum for public service and allowing ordinary people to achieve leadership. McClure’s Chapter Nine is the best source for the development, activities, and roots of the association. While its charter and resolutions, including the duties it imposed on militia companies and the forming of an extralegal court, were not officially signed until 1794—copies are in the Rawle Papers—Faulkner’s experience shows the group operating from the time of the Robert Johnson attack and growing throughout 1792. The association called itself by many names; for clarity, I use only one. The association can be confused with the more upscale and far less serious Washington County democratic society. While both Baldwin and Slaughter place the Mingo Creek group within the French-inspired national craze for democratic societies—Elkins and McKitrick do too, while also suggesting other antecedents—McClure’s scholarship, which is uniquely thorough, supports my sense of the association’s deeper background in the rural popular-finance movement of preceding decades. Bouton (especially in “A Road Closed”) and Holt see the association as spearheading popular democracy by supplying an extralegal alternative to the official court system; Bouton points with admiration to the resulting drop-off in suits brought in the state court. But as this “court” was operated by a self-appointed body that deployed gang attacks while requiring would-be litigants to appeal to its own, extralegally elected judges, I see the situation differently. For skeptical and penetrating discussion of how the local, spontaneous political action often prized by progressives tends to treat the rights of minorities and dissenters, see Wills in A Necessary Evil.

  Threats against William Faulkner. See Faulkner’s undated deposition, taken on behalf of Clymer, in the Whiskey Rebellion Collection. The source for Faulkner’s search for deserters comes from Hamilton’s “Report on Opposition to Internal Duties” of 8/5/1794, evidently via Neville; Faulkner doesn’t refer to that reason for his being in the countryside. Baldwin and Slaughter err in placing the threats later than the second convention and also, oddly, later than the actual ransacking of Faulkner’s home; the depositions of Faulkner and others clarify the chronology; McClure’s reading supports my own. While Hamilton’s “Report” says that Faulkner’s letter was published on the twenty-first, the letter was actually published on the twenty-fifth, as Slaughter notes. Findley, who must have it that the western country was peaceful until Clymer’s visit, claims that Clymer took false testimony from Faulkner; that allegation isn’t specific, and even if true, wouldn’t invalidate Faulkner’s entire story. The physical description of Parkinson is drawn from Findley and from Brackenridge in Incidents.

  The second Pittsburgh convention. No useful documentation of the delegating process exists; H. M. Brackenridge states that the second convention was delegated but poorly organized, its representation unclear. Slaughter and Fennell, for differing reasons, see the second convention as resembling the first in remaining distinct from incidents of violence; neither writer looks closely at the significance of Faulkner’s deposition. The chronology in the note above identifies second-convention attendees Parkinson and John Hamilton as leaders of the active Mingo Creek Association; the convention’s newly radical demands and explicit strategy of organizing and regulating the broad community clearly reflect the influence of the association leaders. That the resolutions were followed by the fulfillment of preconvention threats against Faulkner further bears out the dominance of the association in the convention. Regarding Gallatin: I touch very lightly on him in this book, relying mainly on Brackenridge and Baldwin.

  The Faulkner attacks. The sources are depositions given by Myers, Goudy, and other soldiers in Faulkner’s command, and by Margaret Faulkner and Margaret Campbell, all in the Whiskey Rebellion Collection.

  Hamilton and Washington on military suppression. For Hamilton’s expectation of the failure of law enforcement, his urging military force, and his focus on the Forks as an example, see Hamilton’s Papers: Hamilton to Washington, 9/1/1792; Hamilton to Coxe, 9/1/92; Hamilton to Jay, 9/3/92; Hamilton to Washington, 9/9/92; Randolph to Hamilton, 9/8/92. In Washington’s Writings, see Washington to Hamilt
on, 9/7/92, 9/16/92, 9/17/92; and the Proclamation of 9/15/92.

  Clymer’s mission. The story can be partly constructed from the Addison-Clymer correspondence in the Wolcott Papers; Clymer’s letters to Hamilton of September and October 1792 and Hamilton’s letter to Coxe, 9/1/92, in Hamilton’s Papers; and Findley. I largely follow Slaughter’s entertaining account. In his letter to Hamilton of 10/10/92, Clymer describes the Forks as generally disaffected; on 9/28/92, before his discussion with Neville, his reported impression had been more moderate.

  The Wells attacks. The major source is the Benjamin Wells Claims, a series of depositions and letters scattered about the House Records of the National Archives, comprising Benjamin Wells’s claims against Congress for damages sustained during the rebellion, which Wells pursued for decades. Fennell appears to have first discovered the relevance of this archive to the rebellion; it contains eyewitness descriptions of attacks described in this chapter and in Chapter Nine. The November visit is described in a separate deposition of Wells apparently included by Neville in a letter to Clymer (though not clearly connected to a dated letter, at least in the microfilm version), in the Wolcott Papers.

  Tom the Tinker. The raising of liberty poles, the sending and publishing of Tom’s notes, the hanging of Neville in effigy, the barn burnings, and the still shootings are documented in all sources on the rebellion, largely synthesizing Brackenridge’s Incidents, Neville’s letters to Clymer, Gallatin’s statement to U.S. Attorney Rawle in Incidents, and Hamilton’s “Report on Opposition to Internal Duties” of 8/5/1794. Neville describes his fight with Long and precautionary measures at Bower Hill in a letter to Clymer of 3/21/94, in the Wolcott Papers.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: THE HILLS GIVE LIGHT TO THE VALES

  Washington, Hamilton, and Randolph. The flap can be traced in Hamilton’s Papers, including editorial notes with Randolph’s correspondence: Hamilton to Muhlenberg, 12/16/1793; Hamilton to the select committee, 3/24/94, 4/1/94; Baldwin to Hamilton, 3/29/94; the committee to Hamilton, 4/5/94; Hamilton to Washington, 3/24/94, 4/1/94, 4/8/94, 4/21/94, 4/23/94, 4/25/94; Randolph to Washington, 3/23/94, 4/1/94, 4/23/94; Madison to Jefferson, 3/26/94; Washington to Hamilton, 4/8/94; 4/22/94, 4/24/94; 4/27/94. For more on Randolph in the cabinet, see Elkins and McKitrick. It is the view of Flexner, among others, that after Jefferson’s departure from the cabinet, Hamilton became especially dominant. In the cabinet’s response to the memo referred to below, in the Tench Coxe Letters, William Bradford begins to emerge as a shrewd political player in Hamilton’s camp, advising immediate restraint in the service of ultimate high-federalist success.

  The Washington County democratic society. A copy of the remonstrance is in the Rawle Papers; a circular cabinet memo of 4/14/1794 discussing ways of responding to the remonstrance is in the Tench Coxe Letters. On the French influence and the craze for democratic societies, see Elkins and McKitrick—but McClure’s Chapter Nine is the best source for key distinctions, which Elkins and McKitrick only partially make, between the Mingo Creek Association and the Washington County democratic society. (See also my notes to Chapter Six, above.) For an example of French fever in the west, see Brackenridge’s “Caput” essay in the Marder edition of Incidents. All of Washington’s biographers explore Washington’s extreme disapprobation of the societies; for Washington’s thoughts on the Washington County society in particular, see Washington to Randolph, 4/11/1794, in Washington’s Writings.

  Washington and the west. Slaughter has a groundbreaking chapter on this important subject. Knollenberg’s Chapter Fourteen is concise on Washington’s licit and illicit efforts to engross western land. For Washington’s feelings about rent and sales and his relationship with his agent John Cannon, see in Writings his letters to Cannon of 4/13/1787, 6/25/90, 9/7/91, 4/19/92, 6/27/95; and to Presley Neville, 6/16/94. Cannon chaired the second Pittsburgh convention and signed the circular calling out the militia (described in the next chapter).

  Hamilton’s analysis of the resistance. It was reflexive among some elite politicians—amplified, perhaps, after ratification—to describe popular uprisings as caused by designing individuals, and to refrain from crediting the people themselves with genuine cause for dissatisfaction or with the ability to analyze and organize effectively. As discussed above, Hamilton did not explicitly give ordinary people credit for having either a finance philosophy or strong organizational abilities. But his actions and decisions, as narrated in this and later chapters; his knowledge of the Mingo Creek Association paperwork in Rawle’s files; his history in the confederation Congress; and his general perspicacity indicate to me that despite publicly concurring in Washington’s assumptions, Hamilton identified the energized, often anonymous militiamen at the Forks, not a few upscale politicians, as the real source of tax resistance. His activities at the Forks, described in Chapter Ten, bear this out.

  The June 5 law and the May 31 docket. For an example of local outrage over suspects’ being forced to stand trial far from their neighborhoods, see the lead article by “A Citizen” in the Pittsburgh Gazette, 12/10/1791, sent by Neville to Clymer, in the Wolcott Papers. Baldwin is the major source for the contents of the May docket; Slaughter discusses the invalid dates and William Bradford’s statements about the purpose of serving writs, citing Bradford’s letter to Boudinot of 8/1/94, in the Wallace Papers. Findley, believing Hamilton tampered with due process by deliberately having the writs served under the old law, lashes out against Hamilton; Hamiltonians like Mitchell and Miller decline to consider the issue seriously. Both Slaughter and Baldwin do raise the tampering issue but decline to make a judgment (Slaughter’s notes are far more critical of Hamilton than his text). Baldwin seems to stack the deck against Hamilton, implying that easing trial rules was the main purpose of the new law and that Hamilton thus violated the law’s major thrust; Brookhiser plays the same idea the other way, crediting Hamilton personally with having eased the trial rules and suggesting, with Miller, that the rebels responded to a concession with greater recalcitrance. In fact, the new law had mainly to do with tightening enforcement (see Statutes at Large, 6/5/94). Baldwin also misreads Hamilton’s “Report” of 8/5/94 as suggesting that imminent easing of trial rules prompted rebels to act; in fact Hamilton refers in the “Report” only to the law’s tightened enforcement.

  But whether the May filing was technically illicit seems off the point. There can be little doubt that Hamilton deliberately had the writs filed to beat passage of the new law. Had he wished removed from these warrants what was widely considered the most onerous burden—which Congress was even then removing by law—he would have had it removed, either by not pressing Rawle to file warrants before the law changed on June 6 or by asking Rawle—in the almost impossibly unlikely event that warrants were filed without Hamilton’s direct supervision—to bring them in line with the relaxed rules.

  Shutting down tax offices. Primary sources for the Wells situation are in the Wells Claims; the John Lynn attack and Neville’s frustration with federal inaction are documented in Neville’s letters to Clymer of 6/13/1794 and 6/20/94, in the Wolcott Papers.

  Serving the writs. For Brackenridge’s meeting with Lenox: Brackenridge’s Incidents. The description of serving writs is based on Lenox’s September 1794 report to Hamilton, in both the Wolcott Papers and the Pennsylvania Archives. Background on Lenox is drawn from his obituary, “Another Revolutionary Hero Gone,” and his resume in “Davis-Lenox House.” Henry Marie Brackenridge refers to the use of scythes during the harvest.

  The confrontation at the Miller farm. My sources are Lenox’s report, cited above, and the statements of William Miller in Brackenridge’s Incidents. Fennell gives a somewhat different version, based on Thomas Williams’s deposition and Thomas Porter’s trial testimony in the Neville Papers.

  The first attack on Bower Hill. The attack occurred early in the morning of the sixteenth. For the election of leaders, the march, and the attack itself, the (conflicting) sources are Holcroft’s statements to U.S. Attorney Rawle
and William Miller’s narrative, both in Brackenridge’s Incidents; and Neville’s letter to Tench Coxe, 7/18/1794, in “New Light on the Whiskey Insurrection.” As Baldwin notes, irreducible discrepancies abound. Rebels wanted to minimize their defeat, Neville to maximize it. Neville says the posse numbered about one hundred, sixty with guns, the rest with sticks and stones; Holcroft mentions thirty-seven guns; Miller counts thirty men, fifteen with guns, of which six were working. The women’s role in defending the house is described by a Craig descendant in a footnote to Neville’s letter, based on the memory of Harriet Craig, the Nevilles’ granddaughter. I use the generic term “guns” because no source is specific on how the general was armed. Both Holcroft and Miller claim retreat was called only after a horn from the house signaled the slaves to fire on the rebels from the rear; Neville says that while his slaves were trained for defense, they’d already gone to the fields; he did use the slaves the next day and had no compunction about acknowledging it. That the Oliver Miller who was killed during the attack was William Miller’s teenaged nephew and not, as most writers on the subject have believed, William’s father, is clarified by Hartman, who gives seemingly irrefutable support for the clarification.

  The second attack. The meeting of Brackenridge and Presley Neville occurred on the seventeenth, the morning after the first attack; the second attack took place in the late afternoon of the seventeenth. For Brackenridge’s activities through the end of this chapter, I rely on Brackenridge in Incidents. The statement to U.S. Attorney Rawle by the militiaman James Therr (according to McClure, a misprint for “Kerr,” a suspect named later on Alexander Hamilton’s list), in Incidents, is a primary source for rebel regrouping and planning. Baldwin believes that Benjamin Parkinson, like John Hamilton, declined to serve at Bower Hill; Fennell has followed that assertion; but as McClure notes, Therr/Kerr mentions Parkinson (by initials) as a member of the committee overseeing the attack, a description that better accords with Parkinson’s earlier and later roles. The conditions under which Bradford, Marshall, and John Hamilton declined to serve are unclear: Hamilton seems likely to have been present at Couch’s Fort; Bradford and Marshall are more likely to have simply not shown up. I’ve drawn information on the McFarlane brothers largely from Hassler, supported by Findley and Brackenridge. Incidents includes David Hamilton’s statement to Rawle, with a version of the parleys with Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick gives his own point of view of the parleys, the attack, and his capture and escape, in a letter to Washington of 7/28/1794, Wolcott Papers. Neville’s losses in the burning and mayhem are listed in American State Papers, “Claims,” volume 1. Other key sources are Lenox’s September report to Hamilton and Neville’s letter to Coxe, cited above: Neville says the rebels shot the horses (the claims also list a cow and a breeding sow); Lenox is the source for his own and Presley Neville’s treatment by and escape from the rebels.