Washington personally rode at the head of 13,000 troops to crush a tax revolt — the only time a sitting U.S. president led an army in the field. The rebels scattered before he arrived. Nobody died.
In 1791, Alexander Hamilton pushed through a federal excise tax on domestically produced whiskey — the new nation's first internal tax. For western Pennsylvania farmers, whiskey wasn't a luxury: it was how they converted surplus grain into a tradeable, transportable commodity. The tax hit them harder than eastern merchants, who could spread costs across larger operations.
Resistance began with harassment of tax collectors and quickly escalated. Collectors were tarred and feathered, had their horses stolen, and were threatened at gunpoint. By 1794, violence had spread across four states. In July, a federal marshal was met by 500 armed men when he tried to serve warrants near Pittsburgh.
A gathering of 7,000 protesters at Braddock's Field in August 1794 threatened to march on Pittsburgh. The federal government under Washington could not ignore it: if the new nation couldn't enforce its own tax laws, the constitutional experiment was in serious trouble.
Washington called up 12,950 militia from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey — an army larger than anything he had commanded during much of the Revolutionary War. He rode personally at its head to western Pennsylvania, the only time in U.S. history a sitting president has commanded troops in the field.
By the time the army arrived, the rebellion had effectively dissolved. Most of the protest leaders had fled or gone into hiding. The army arrested about 150 men; twenty were indicted for treason. Two were convicted. Washington pardoned both of them.
The rebellion clarified something important about the new federal government: it would enforce its laws by force if necessary. It also accelerated the formation of American political parties — Thomas Jefferson and James Madison used the episode to argue against Hamiltonian federal power. Jefferson repealed the whiskey tax in 1802 as one of his first acts as president.