George Washington rode west from Philadelphia in command of 13,000 troops on a mission that would test his leadership unlike any previous campaign.
These men were not soldiers in the Continental Army. They were citizen militiamen—forerunners of the National Guard—called up from Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey. And Washington was no longer simply a general. He was president of the United States.
The year was 1794, and Washington had made one of the most fateful decisions of his presidency: to use armed force against fellow Americans.
Congress, desperate for revenue to pay war debts, had enacted a tax on whiskey. Grain farmers in Western Pennsylvania saw the tax as immoral and unjust….