he "mountain whites," but properly southern highlanders.

The first generation of Pennsylvania frontiersmen knew no laws but those
of their own making. They were too far away, too scattered, and too
poor, for the Crown to bother with them. Then came the Revolution. The
backwoodsmen were loyal to the new American Government--loyal to a man.
They not only fought off the Indians from the rear, but sent many of
their incomparable riflemen to fight at the front as well.

They were the first English-speaking people to use weapons of precision
(the rifle, introduced by the Pennsylvania-Dutch about 1700, was used by
our backwoodsmen exclusively throughout the war). They were the first to
employ open-order formation in civilized warfare. They were the first
outside colonists to assist their New England brethren at the siege of
Boston. They were mustered in as the First Regiment of Foot of the
Continental Army (being the first troops enrolled by our Congress, and
the first to serve under a Federal banner). They carried the day at
Saratoga, the Cowpens, and King's Mountain. From the beginning to the
end of the war, they were Washington's favorite troops.

[Illustration: A Tub Mill]

And yet these same men were the first rebels against the authority of
the United States Government! And it was their old commander-in-chief,
Washington himself, who had the ungrateful task of bringing them to
order by a show of Federal bayonets.

It happened in this wise:

Up to the year 1791 there had been no excise tax in the United Colonies
or the United States. (One that had been tried in Pennsylvania was
utterly abortive). Then the country fell upon hard times. A larger
revenue had to be raised, and Hamilton suggested an excise. The measure
was bitterly opposed by many public men, notably by Jefferson; but it
passed. Immediately there was trouble in the tall timber.

Western Pennsylvania, and the mountains southward, had been settled, as
we have seen, by the Scotch-Irish; men who had brought with them a
certain fondness for whiskey, a certain knack in making it, and an
intense hatred of excise, on general as well as special principles.
There were few roads across the mountains, and these few were
execrable--so bad, indeed, that it was impossible for the backwoodsmen
to bring their corn and rye to market, except in a concentrated form.
The farmers of the seaboard had grown rich, from the high prices that
prevailed during the French Revol