Albert Gallatin
accused persons to Philadelphia for trial, but was not construed to be
retroactive in its operation. The marshal, accordingly, found it to be
his duty to serve the writs of May 31 against those who had fallen under
their penalties. These writs were returnable in Philadelphia. They were
served without trouble in Fayette County. Not so in Allegheny. Here on
July 15, 1794, the marshal had completed his service, when, while still
in the execution of his office, and in company with the inspector, he
was followed and fired upon. The next day a body of men went to the
house of the marshal and demanded that he should deliver up his
commission. They were fired upon and dispersed, six were wounded, and
the leader killed. A general rising followed. The marshal's house,
though defended by Major Kirkpatrick, with a squad from the Pittsburgh
garrison, was set on fire, with the adjacent buildings, and burned. On
July 18 the insurgents sent a deputation of two or three to Pittsburgh,
to require of the marshal a surrender of the processes in his
possession, and of the inspector the resignation of his office. These
demands were, of course, rejected; but the officers, alarmed for their
personal safety, left the town, and, descending the Ohio by boat to
Marietta, proceeded by a circuitous route to Philadelphia, and made
their report to the United States authorities.
This was the outbreak of the Western or Whiskey Insurrection. The
excitement spread rapidly through the western counties. Fayette County
was not exempt from it. The collector's house was broken into, and his
commission taken from him by armed men; the sheriff refused to serve the
writs against the rioters of the spring. Since these disturbances there
had been no trouble in this county. But the malcontents elsewhere rose
in arms, riots ensued, and the safety of the whole community was
compromised. The news reaching Fayette, the distillers held a meeting at
Uniontown, the county seat, on July 20. Both Gallatin and Smilie were
present, and by their advice it was agreed to submit to the laws. The
neighboring counties were less fortunate. On July 21 the Washington
County committee was summoned to meet at Mingo Creek Meeting-house. On
the 23d there was a large assemblage of people, including a number of
those who had been concerned in burning the house of the Pittsburgh
inspector. James Marshall, the same who opposed the ratification of the
federal Constitution, David Bradford, the "empty drum," and Judge
Brackenridge of Pittsburgh, attended this meeting. Bradford, the most
unscrupulous of the leaders, sought to shirk his responsibility, but was
intimidated by threats, and thereafter did not dare to turn back.
Brackenridge was present to counsel the insurgents to moderation. In
spite of his efforts the meeting ended in an invitation, which the
officers had not the boldness to sign, to the townships of the four
western counties of Pennsylvania and the adjoining counties of Virginia
to send representatives to a general meeting on August 14, at
Parkinson's Ferry on the Monongahela, in Washington County. Bradford,
determined to aggravate the disturbance, stopped the mail at Greensburg,
on the road between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and robbed it of the
Washington and Pittsburgh letters, some of which he published, to the
alarm of their authors.
On July 28 a circular signed by Bradford, Marshall, and others was sent
out from Cannonsburg to the militia of the county, whom it summoned for
personal service, and likewise called for volunteers to rendezvous the
following Wednesday, July 30, at their respective places of meeting,
thence to march to Braddock's Field, on the Monongahela, the usual
rendezvous of the militia, about eight miles south of Pittsburgh, by two
o'clock of Friday, August 1. It closed in these words, "Here is an
expedition proposed in which you will have an opportunity for displaying
your military talents and of rendering service to your country." Nothing
less was contemplated by the more extreme of these men than an attack
upon Fort Pitt and the sack of Pittsburgh. Thoroughly aroused at last,
the moderate men of Washington determined to breast the storm. A meeting
was held; James Ross of the United States Senate made an earnest appeal,
and was supported by Scott of the House of Representatives and Stokely
of the Senate of Pennsylvania. Marshall and Bradford yielded, and
consented to countermand the order of rendezvous. But the excited
population poured into the town from all quarters, and Bradford, who
found that he had gone too far to retreat, again took the lead of the
movement, already beyond restraint.
There are accounts of this formidable insurrection by H. H. Brackenridge
and William Findley, eye-witnesses. These supply abundant details.
Findley says that he knew that the movement would not stop at the limit
apparently set for it. "The opposing one law would lead to oppose
another; they would finally oppose all, and demand a new modeling of the
Constitution, and there would be a revolution." There was great alarm in
Pittsburgh. A meeting was held there Thursday evening, July 31, at which
a message from the Washington County insurgents was read, violent
resolutions adopted, and the 9th of August appointed as the day for a
town meeting for election of delegates to a general convention of the
counties at Parkinson's Ferry; Judge Brackenridge of Pittsburgh, a man
of education, influence, and infinite jest and humor, was present at
this meeting. Of Scotch-Irish birth himself, his sympathies of race were
with his countrymen, but in political sentiments he was not in harmony
with their leaders. They were nearly all Republicans, while he had sided
with the Federalists in the convention which adopted the new
Constitution of the United States. He was a man of peace, and of too
much sagacity not to foresee the inevitable ruin upon which they were
rushing. At Mingo Creek he had thwarted the plans of immediate
revolution. The evident policy of moderate men was to prevent any
violence before the convention at Parkinson's Ferry should meet, and to
bend all their energies to control the deliberations of that body. The
people of Pittsburgh were intensely excited by the armed gathering
almost at their doors.
Brackenridge felt that the only safe issue from the situation was to
take part in and shape the action of that gathering. Under his lead a
committee from the Pittsburgh meeting, followed by a large body of the
citizens, went out to the rendezvous. Here they found a motley
assemblage, arrayed in the picturesque campaign costume which the
mountaineers wore when they equipped themselves to meet the
Indians,--yellow hunting-shirts, handkerchiefs tied about their heads,
and rifles on the shoulder; the militia were on foot, and the light
horse of the counties were in military dress. Conspicuous about the
field, "haughty and pompous," as Gallatin described him in the
legislature, was David Bradford, who had assumed the office of
major-general. Brackenridge draws a lifelike picture of him as, mounted
on a superb horse in splendid trappings, arrayed in full uniform, with
plume floating in the air and sword drawn, he rode over the ground, gave
orders to the military, and harangued the multitude. On the historic
ground where Washington plucked his first military laurels were gathered
about seven thousand men, of whom two thousand militia were armed and
accoutred as for a campaign,--a formidable and remarkable assemblage,
when it is considered that the entire male population of sixteen years
of age and upwards of the four counties did not exceed sixteen
thousand, and was scattered over a wide and unsettled country. This is
Brackenridge's estimate of the numbers. Later, Gallatin, on comparison
of the best attainable information, estimated the whole body at from
fifteen hundred to two thousand men. Whatever violence Bradford may have
intended, none was accomplished. That he read aloud the Pittsburgh
letters, taken from the mail, shows his purpose to inflame the people to
vindictive violence. He was accused by contemporary authorities of
imitation of the methods of the French Jacobins, which were fresh
examples of revolutionary vigor. But the mass was not persuaded. After
desultory conversation and discussion, the angry turn of which was at
times threatening to the moderate leaders, the meeting broke up on
August 2; about one third dispersed for their homes, and the remainder,
marching to Pittsburgh, paraded through the streets, and finally
crossing the river in their turn scattered. They did no damage to the
town beyond the burning of a farm belonging to Major Kirkpatrick of the
garrison. The taverns were all closed, but the citizens brought whiskey
to their doors. Judge Brackenridge reports that his sacrifice to peace
on this occasion cost him four barrels of his best old rye.
This moderation was no augury of permanent quiet. Brackenridge, who was
a keen observer of men, says of the temper of the western population at
this period: "I had seen the spirit which prevailed at the Stamp Act,
and at the commencement of the revolution from the government of Great
Britain, but it was by no means so general and so vigorous amongst the
common people as the spirit which now existed in the country." Nor did
the armed bands all return peaceably to their homes. The house of the
collector for Fayette and Washington counties was burned, and warnings
were given to those who were disposed to submit to the law. The
disaffected were called "Tom the tinker" men, from the signature affixed
to the threatening notices. From a passage in one of Gallatin's letters
it appears that there was a person of that name, a New England man, who
had been concerned in Shays's insurrection. Liberty poles, with the
device, "An equal tax and no excise law," were raised, and the trees
placarded with the old revolutionary motto, "United we stand, divided we
fall," with a divided snake as an emblem. Mr. Gallatin's neighborhood
was not represented at Braddock's Field, and not more than a dozen were
present from the entire county. But now the flame spread there also, and
liberty poles were raised. Mr. Gallatin himself, inquiring as to their
significance and expressing to the men engaged the hope that they would
not behave like a mob, was asked, in return, if he was not aware of the
Westmoreland resolution that any one calling the people a mob should be
tarred and feathered,--an amusing example of that mob logic which
proves the affirmative of the proposition it denies.
Mr. Gallatin did not attend the meeting at Braddock's Field. Somewhat
isolated at his residence at the southerly border of the county, engaged
in the care of his long neglected farm, and in the full enjoyment of
release from the bustle and excitement of public life, he had paid
little attention to passing events. He was preparing definitively to
abandon political pursuits and to follow some kind of mercantile
business, or take up some land speculation and study law in his
intervals of leisure. It was not a year since he had given hostages to
fortune. He was now in the full tide of domestic happiness, which was
always to him the dearest and most coveted. He might well have hesitated
before again engaging upon the dangerous and uncertain task of
controlling an excited and aggrieved population. But he did not
hesitate.
The people among whom he had made his home, and whose confidence had
never failed him, were his people. By them he would stand in their
extremity, and if hurt or ruin befell them, it should not be for want of
the interposition of his counsel. He knew his powers, and he determined
to bring them into full play. He knew the danger also, but it only
nerved him to confront and master it. He knew his duty, and did not