Silver Heels
Young John Marshall surpassed in athletics, any man in the Army. When the soldiers were idle at their quarters, it was usual for the officers to engage in a game of quoits or in jumping and racing. Then he would throw a quoit farther, and beat at a race any other. He was the only man, who with a running jump, could clear a stick laid on the heads of two men as tall as himself.
On one occasion, he ran a race in his stocking feet with a comrade. His mother, in knitting his stockings, had knit the legs of blue yarn and the heels of white. Because of this and because he always won the races, the soldiers called him:—
“Silver Heels.”
J. B. Thayer (Arranged)