Soldiers Without Pay: The Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 and the Making of American Government

In June 1783, a band of unpaid Continental soldiers marched from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia, surrounded Independence Hall, and held the Confederation Congress at bayonet point. The government of the United States — incapable of paying its army, powerless to defend itself, dependent on a state government that refused to act — fled under cover of darkness and did not return for sevente...