40 Fun Facts About Whiskey Rebellion

Which president rode west at the head of a 13,000-man militia army to crush the Whiskey Rebellion?

George Washington was the first sitting president to lead an army on campaign. Three years later he opened a whiskey distillery of his own at Mount Vernon.

Which future explorer of the American West marched against the whiskey rebels as a young Virginia militiaman?

Meriwether Lewis joined the regular army the year after the expedition and there served under William Clark, his future partner on the trail to the Pacific.

Which punishment, borrowed from 1770s protests, did a disguised gang inflict on whiskey tax collector Robert Johnson?

Tarring and feathering copied the protests of the American Revolution, and the man sent to serve warrants on Johnson's attackers got the same treatment.

Which Treasury Secretary proposed the whiskey tax and then rode west with the army sent to enforce it?

Alexander Hamilton called the excise a luxury tax and the least objectionable one available. He stayed on with the army as a civilian adviser after the president went home.

What became of the only two whiskey rebels convicted in federal court and sentenced to hang in 1795?

They were pardoned by the president, who told Congress he wished to govern with moderation and tenderness. One was a simple-minded man talked into his crime by a rebel leader.

Radicals at the whiskey rebels' great 1794 rally called for bringing which device to America?

The guillotine was the emblem of France's Reign of Terror. Some in the crowd also wanted to loot the homes of the wealthy.

On which holiday in 1794 were captured whiskey rebels paraded before jeering crowds in the national capital?

Christmas Day brought cannon fire and church bells as the returning army marched its bedraggled, half-starved prisoners past a huge throng.

Western Pennsylvania, heartland of the Whiskey Rebellion, was the 1790s center for whiskey distilled from which grain?

Rye suited the region's cold climate and acidic soil, and the spicy local style is still known as Monongahela.

What met the 13,000 militiamen who marched into western Pennsylvania to crush the Whiskey Rebellion?

No opposition at all: the insurrection collapsed as the army drew near, and as many as 2,000 rebels had already fled into the mountains.

Under which president did Congress finally repeal the hated whiskey tax along with every other internal federal tax?

Thomas Jefferson won office with the backing of the tax's opponents, and Congress scrapped it in 1802, eight years after the army marched west.

The 1791 whiskey tax, devised by the first Treasury Secretary, was meant to raise money for what?

Revolutionary War debts came to $54 million at the national level, and the federal government had agreed to take on another $25 million owed by the states.

Frontier whiskey-tax evaders faced a 300-mile trip to federal court in which city, then the national capital?

Philadelphia lay a costly journey over the mountains, so in June 1794 Congress let excise cases be heard in local state courts, too late to stop the summonses already on their way.

Which frontier town at the forks of the Ohio River did thousands of whiskey rebels march through in August 1794?

Pittsburgh got off lightly: townspeople banished three men who had angered the rebels, and the march ended with only one officer's barns burned.

Two whiskey rebels were sentenced to death in 1795 after a federal jury convicted them of which crime?

Treason charges were brought against 24 men, but most had fled. Only ten stood trial, and eight of those walked free.

Why did farmers west of the Appalachians turn their surplus grain into whiskey before sending it to market?

It was easier to transport than bulky grain on the poor roads over the mountains, and on the cash-poor frontier whiskey even served as money.

Which cavalry hero of the War of Independence, then Virginia's governor, led the army sent against the whiskey rebels?

Henry Lee, known as Light-Horse Harry, took over when the president turned back for the capital. His son Robert E. would one day command the Confederate army.

Which victor of the Battle of Cowpens led one wing of the militia army against the whiskey rebels?

Daniel Morgan was promoted to major general that year and stayed on into 1795, commanding the 1,200 militiamen left behind to keep watch.

Which federal tax inspector, himself a wealthy distiller, saw his fortified home burned by whiskey rebels in July 1794?

John Neville had opposed the whiskey tax before taking the inspector's job, a reversal that angered his neighbors. He escaped the attack by hiding in a ravine.

Which European power angered the whiskey rebels' region by closing the Mississippi River to American trade?

Spain then held Louisiana, and some of the rebels gathered at the great 1794 rally even talked of leaving the United States to join it.

What was the name of the federal tax inspector's fortified mansion that hundreds of whiskey rebels burned in July 1794?

Bower Hill was defended by just ten regular soldiers, and the rebels torched it after their own commander was shot dead during a ceasefire.

Which rebel major was shot dead after calling a ceasefire during the 1794 attack on the whiskey-tax inspector's house?

James McFarlane was given a hero's funeral the next day, and anger over what the rebels called his murder pushed the countryside toward open revolt.

Which county deputy attorney general became a radical leader of the whiskey rebels and fled before the army arrived?

David Bradford resurfaced far to the south as a wealthy planter, and the stone house he left behind in western Pennsylvania is now a National Historic Landmark.

Which leader of the French Reign of Terror was the whiskey rebels' radical chief said to compare himself to?

Robespierre's name came up at the same 1794 rally where the crowd flew its own six-striped flag and talked of independence from the United States.

At which site of a 1755 French and Indian War battle did some 7,000 whiskey rebels gather in August 1794?

Braddock's Field lay a few miles outside the town the crowd hoped to overawe, and most who came were poor, landless men who owned no stills.

Which pseudonym signed the threatening notes sent to distillers who complied with the 1791 whiskey tax?

Tom the Tinker's warnings had teeth: those who ignored them might have their barns burned or their stills destroyed.

Which protest symbols from the 1770s did whiskey-tax resisters raise in Pennsylvania towns, worrying federal officials?

Liberty poles went up in towns including Carlisle, where militia rounding up the suspected pole-raisers killed two civilians.

Militia from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and which fourth state marched against the whiskey rebels in 1794?

New Jersey's contingent joined a force of 12,950, an army as large as those raised during the War of Independence.

In which frontier state did the whiskey tax go entirely uncollected because no official would enforce it?

Kentucky's distillers stayed defiant after the rebellion too: over the next six years more than 175 of them were convicted of breaking the tax law.

Which Swiss-born future Treasury Secretary argued for peace at the whiskey rebels' August 1794 convention?

Albert Gallatin later called his part in the protests his only political sin, then oversaw the end of the whiskey tax from the Treasury in 1802.

Which Massachusetts farmers' revolt of 1786–87 was the first of three tax uprisings, ahead of the whiskey rebels' own?

Shays's Rebellion had to be put down partly by a privately funded militia, because the old Confederation government could not pay for troops.

What did western Pennsylvanians call the November 1794 raids in which troops dragged whiskey suspects from their beds?

The Dreadful Night saw captives driven barefoot and in their nightclothes over muddy roads, then held in animal pens and cellars.

By which biblical name did radical whiskey rebels refer to the wealthy frontier town they wanted to loot and burn?

Sodom was to be looted and burned to the ground, until a moderate lawyer persuaded the crowd to settle for a defiant march through its streets.

Which film comedian joked about the Whiskey Rebellion in 'The Temperance Lecture', recorded shortly before he died?

W. C. Fields made the record in guitarist Les Paul's home studio, reading his lines from cue cards printed in extra-large type.

Under which pen name did the Treasury Secretary publish essays urging military action against the whiskey rebels?

Tully's essays ran in the capital's newspapers in 1794, denouncing mob violence in the west while the president weighed his response.

Which Supreme Court justice had to certify a state of rebellion before militia could march on the whiskey rebels?

James Wilson gave his opinion on August 4, 1794, and three days later a presidential proclamation ordered the insurgents to disperse by September 1.

Which militant frontier group dominated the 1792 convention against the whiskey tax and even set up its own court?

The Mingo Creek Association also took control of the local militia and scared a landlord into evicting the tax inspector from his rented office.

Which frontier lawyer and author of the novel 'Modern Chivalry' talked whiskey rebels out of burning a town in 1794?

Hugh Henry Brackenridge, who had helped found the first newspaper in the West, persuaded the crowd to settle for a defiant march instead.

The 1791 whiskey excise could legally be paid only in which form of money, always scarce on the frontier?

Gold and silver coin, known as specie, was so rare beyond the mountains that whiskey itself often changed hands in its place.

After the whiskey tax was repealed, the federal government lived on import tariffs alone until which conflict?

The War of 1812 proved so costly that Congress brought back excise taxes on distilled spirits, carriages and sugar refining in 1813.

The whiskey excise of 1791 was the first tax the federal government ever placed on what kind of goods?

Domestic products had gone untaxed while import duties paid the bills, but by late 1790 the Treasury judged those duties were as high as they could go.