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Whiskey Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion -The federalized militia force of 12,950 men was a large army by American standards of the time, comparable to Washington's armies during the Revolution.[97][98]

"Whiskey Rebellion." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 21 May. 2020. academic-eb-com.ezproxy.pstcc.edu:3443/levels/collegiate/article/Whiskey-Rebellion/76786. Accessed 21 Feb. 2021.

Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2020-07-02 Encyclopædia Britannica Inc Britannica Online Academic Edition
 * no isbn noted

- After fruitless negotiations with the 15-member committee representing the rebels (which included Anti-Federalist Pennsylvania legislator and later U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin), Washington ordered some 13,000 troops into the area, but the opposition melted away and no battle ensued.

Practice Article Section: In addition to the happenings in Fayette county, August 9th, 1974, 30 men of Morgantown, Virginia surrounded the house of William McCleery, the tax collector assigned to their town, in retaliation to the taxes. McCleery felt threatened enough by the angry men to disguise himself as a slave and fled from his home by the river. This led to a prolonged siege of Morgantown by the townspeople and became a town for recruitment for anti-tax. Part of the Article Used "The violence and intimidation occurring in western Pennsylvania eventually spread into Virginia's western reaches. According to contemporary accounts, the first attacks on Virginia excise officers occurred in the spring of 1794. In Ohio County on 8 August 1794, in an effort to increase public support among Virginians for their scheduled 14 August anti-excise meeting at Parkinson's Ferry, a determined group of Pennsylvanians and Virginians launched a campaign of terror against local revenue officer Zachariah Biggs. A group of approximately fifty men approached Biggs and demanded that he "ignore the [excise] law."18 The men then proceeded to remove "certain bonds" from the officer. Several Virginia men, including Alexander Campbell, William Laidley, William Sutherland, and John Edie, were subsequently indicted in Ohio County District Court for the "robbery against Zachariah Biggs."19 The next day, a large group of approximately thirty men entered Monongalia County to continue their assault on Virginia's excise officers. Several local citizens joined this mob, which immediately targeted the excise office in Morgan town.20 Several accounts of this event are in existence. A contributor to the Pittsburgh Gazette stated he insurgents have been quite outrageous, and done much mischief. Here [in Morgan-town] we have been quiet until a few days ago, when about 30 men, blacked, came in the night of the 9th instant, and surrounded the house of the collector of this county [William McCleery], but the man escaping, and advertising that he had resigned his office, they went off peaceably.21

Before the Morgantown incident, Monongalia County excise officer William McCleery received a letter stating, "if he did not resign he would be forced to give up his commission and his property would be destroyed."22 McCleery offers this account of the warning:

I am threatened from all quarters in my own country, and the Pennsylvanians came into our Town and ordered me to give up my papers, as they would come and destroy them with all my property; in the meantime no collection can go on, as our distillers will not pay 'till they see the event.23

McCleery ignored the warning, and his decision ultimately forced him to disguise himself as a slave as he "fled from his home, swam the river and escape[d]." As historian Earl Core states, "[McCleery] had no desire to come to blows with the party that had come to Morgantown on August 9." "A considerable party" of anti-excise men did pursue McCleery, but upon hearing of his resignation, they did not destroy his property.24 After the aborted assault on McCleery, the band of Whiskey Rebels settled down for a prolonged siege of Morgantown's excise supporters.

For the next three days, the anti-excise men recruited local citizens and terrorized the inhabitants of Morgantown. A heightened sense of fear settled upon the county of Monongalia, as Morgantown briefly became the national center of anti-excise activity. An excise officer from the Virginia counties of Hampshire and Hardy, Edward Smith, refused to travel to Morgantown. In correspondence to Virginia governor Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, Smith recounted a letter he had recently received from a Morgantown tax "Collector," identified only as Weaver. He wrote that his "intended visit was well known, and that he is confident that I would be in the hands of the Pennsylvanians in a short time after my arrival at Morgan Town. Under the circumstances, I deemed it needless to proceed."25"

Works Cited: Barksdale, Kevin T., and Henry Lee. "Our Rebellious Neighbors: Virginia's Border Counties during Pennsylvania's Whiskey Rebellion." The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 111.1 (2003): 5-32. ProQuest. Web. 11 Mar. 2021.