in Pennsylvania and New York, and, later in the war, again in Virginia.  In May, 1777, he was appointed a captain.  He took part in the battles of Iron Hill and Brandywine.  He was also present at Monmouth, at Paulus (or Powles) Hook, and at the capture of Stony Point.  He endured the winter’s sufferings at Valley Forge, where because of his patience, firmness, and good humor, he won the special regard of the soldiers and his brother-officers.  In the course of his military service he often acted as judge-advocate; and he made the acquaintance of Washington and Hamilton, with both of whom he contracted a lasting friendship.

As to the effect of these early experiences on the formation of his opinions, Marshall himself has testified.  “I am,” said he on a certain occasion, “disposed to ascribe my devotion to the Union, and to a government competent to its preservation, at least as much to casual circumstances as to judgment.  I had grown up at a time ... when the maxim, ‘United we stand, divided we fall’ was the maxim of every orthodox American; and I had imbibed these sentiments so thoroughly that they constituted a part of my being.  I carried them with me into the army, where I found myself associated with brave men from different States who were risking life and everything valuable in a common cause; ... and where I was confirmed in the habit of considering America as my country and Congress as my government.”

In 1780 Marshall was admitted to the Bar, and after another term of service in the army he began, in 1781, the practice of the law in Fauquier County.  His professional attainments must then have been comparatively limited.  His education in letters he had derived solely from his father, who was fond of literature and possessed some of the writings of the English masters, and from two gentlemen of classical learning, whose tuition he enjoyed for the brief period of two years.  Of legal education he had had, according to our present standards, exceedingly little.  It is said that when about eighteen years of age he began the study of Blackstone; but apart from this his legal education seems to have been gained from a short course of lectures by Chancellor Wythe, at William and Mary College, and from such reading as he was able to indulge in during his military service.  And yet, removing to Richmond about 1783, he almost immediately rose to professional eminence.  “This extraordinary man,” said William Wirt, “without the aid of fancy, without the advantages of person, voice, attitude, gesture, or any of the ornaments of an orator, deserves to be considered as one of the most eloquent men in the world, if eloquence may be said to consist of the power of seizing the attention with irresistible force, and never permitting it to elude the grasp until the hearer has received the conviction which the speaker intends....  He possesses one original and almost superhuman faculty,—­the faculty of developing a subject by a single glance of his mind, and detecting at once the very point on which every controversy depends.”