The Young Lieutenant
When John Marshall was nineteen, he was about six feet high, straight, and rather slender, and of dark complexion. His eyes were dark to blackness, strong and penetrating, beaming with intelligence and good nature. His raven black hair was of unusual thickness.
He was Lieutenant of a Company, and wore a purple or pale blue hunting shirt, and trousers of the same material fringed with white. A round black hat, with a buck-tail for a cockade, crowned his figure.
The news of the Battle of Lexington reached him, and he was soon on the muster-field training his Company.
First, he made his men a speech, telling them that he had come to meet them as fellow soldiers, who were likely to be called on to defend their Country and their own rights and liberties—that there had been a battle at Lexington in which the Americans were victorious, but that more fighting was expected—that soldiers were called for—and that it was time to brighten their firearms, and learn to use them in the field—and that, if they would fall into a single line, he would show them the new manual exercise, for which purpose he had brought his own gun.
Then before he required the men to imitate him, he went through the manual exercise by word and motion, deliberately pronounced and performed. He then proceeded to exercise them with the most perfect temper. Never did man possess a temper more happy, or one more subdued or better disciplined.
After a few lessons, he dismissed the Company, saying that if they wished to hear more about the war, he would tell them what he understood about it. The men formed a circle about him, and he talked to them for about an hour.
After that he challenged an acquaintance to a game of quoits. And they closed the day with foot-races and other athletic exercises.
Horace Binney (Retold)