[Carlisle, PA]

During the Whiskey Campaign of 1794, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, had been set as the rendezvous point for the various state militias to meet up in a mass show of force. They would then proceed to the insurgency’s focal point, more than a hundred miles further northeast.

Alexander Hamilton arrived here on October 6, 1794 and stayed for several days.

President George Washington, who had worried about the propriety of his leading troops in the field, ultimately decided to turn around and head back to Philadelphia after reaching Carlisle. Evidently he requested that Hamilton return with him. Hamilton later confessed that he suspected several of the state governors leading their state militias, including Governor Thomas Mifflin of Pennsylvania and Governor Henry Lee of Virginia, might harbor sympathies with the Whiskey Rebels. Hamilton felt his own firm hand was required to keep the other commanders focused on the mission.

Hamilton wrote his wife, Elizabeth Hamilton,

“We are very strong & the Insurgents are all submissive so that you may be perfectly tranquil. My health thank God is excellent. But I have heared from you only once.1 You must continue to write to this place sending your letters to General Knox to forward to me. God bless you & my dear Children.”

Carlisle is the home of Dickinson College, the alma mater of future president James Buchanan and future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roger Taney. Folklore has it that Buchanan, as an infant, once sat on George Washington’s knee at a tavern in the region, during the course of the Whiskey Campaign.