Washington: A Life

As opposition flared into violent discontent, the first target was Colonel John Neville, a revenue inspector who had seen service in the Continental Army. In mid-July 1794 Neville and U.S. Marshal David Lenox tried serving processes on farmers who had not registered their stills, as required by law. In retaliation, protesters attacked Neville’s house, putting it to the torch, and also fired at Lenox. On August 1 the protests assumed a more ominous character when six thousand dissidents appeared in Braddock’s Field outside Pittsburgh—the same place where Washington had shown such heroism four decades earlier. The mood of bravado and secession was symbolized by a flag with six stripes, representing the four counties in Pe

On August 2 Washington assembled his cabinet to ponder measures to counter the uprising. Reluctantly convinced that he had to crack down on those defying the whiskey tax, he urged Pe

The day after the proclamation, Knox received the president’s reluctant permission to take a six-week leave of absence in Maine, where he had encountered business setbacks. All year Washington had brooded about whether Knox’s financial plight would force him to resign. In 1790 Knox had bought two million acres in Maine with the notorious speculator William Duer, whose machinations had touched off financial panic in New York. Eager to become a country squire, Knox borrowed lavishly and constructed a baronial mansion. With its nineteen rooms and twenty-four fireplaces, the house ranked among New England’s majestic private residences. Since Knox had been the soul of loyalty to Washington, it seems puzzling that he deserted him during the Whiskey Rebellion; the president must have wondered whether his protégé had lost his way amid his social aspirations. In a major step, Washington had Alexander Hamilton assume the additional duties of secretary of war until Knox returned. It was a tough moment for Hamilton, too, since his wife was going through a difficult pregnancy and one of his sons lay desperately ill.

When the three commissioners met with local residents in western Pe

The evidence of unrest in western Pe

Amid the crisis, Washington bowed to the wishes of his Alexandria lodge and sat for a portrait by William Joseph Williams that featured him in a Masonic outfit. After suffering through many portraits early in his presidency, Washington had decided to scale back drastically. He admitted to Henry Lee in 1792 that he had grown “so heartily tired of the attendance which . . . I have bestowed on these kind of people [artists] that it is now more than two years since I have resolved to sit no more for any of them . . . except in instances where it has been requested by public bodies or for a particular purpose . . . and could not without offense be refused.”44 He detested the crude engravings of him made from paintings, which were crassly peddled by vendors. The pastel portrait that Williams executed on September 18, 1794, shows a particularly dour, cranky Washington, with a tightly turned-down mouth. Posing in a black coat, he wears Masonic symbols on a blue sash that slants diagonally across his chest. His face is neither friendly nor heroic but looks like that of a bad-tempered relative, suggesting that the presidency was now a trial he endured only for the public good. Unsparing in its accuracy, the Williams portrait shows various blemishes on Washington’s face—a scar that curves under the pouch of his left eye; a mole below his right earlobe; smallpox scars on both his nose and cheeks—ordinarily edited out of highly sanitized portraits.

On September 25 Washington issued a final warning to the whiskey rebels, who had dismissed his “overtures of forgiveness” and now constituted, in his view, “a treasonable opposition.”45 He viewed their actions as a grave test of the Constitution, raising the question of “whether a small proportion of the United States shall dictate to the whole Union.”46 Prepared to don his uniform to lead the fight, Washington told his tailor to make up an outfit patterned after the one he had worn during the war. He pla