Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 36.djvu/62

46 During the Revolutionary war he served as captain and distinguished himself at Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. His chief eminence, however, was in civic life and in the practice of his chosen profession, which he devoted himself to at the close of the war. His manners had been formed in camp and were in strange contrast to those of Randolph and Grayson. His habits were convivial and he was careless and indifferent in regard to his deportment and dress. He was doubtless saved from his amiable temper and social proclivities by his wife, who was the guardian angel of his earlier life. John Marshall and his wife lived happily together for fifty-three years, the tribute to her memory, written by himself and published in Meade's Old Churches, etc., is one of the tenderest and most affecting ever written. His intellectual powers are best shown in his judicial opinions, which to this day are quoted and referred to by those learned in the law. He found time in the midst of his official duties to write his well-known life of Washington. He was of high character–that spiritual and moral attribute and quality that distinguishes men amongst their fellows. His manners were simple and unassuming. He was extremely affable and easily accessible to the young as well as the old, by the poor as well as the rich, by the fair sex as well as the manlier. His face was kind and the expression benignant ; his eye, black and piercing, never let the image of a friend, any more than the semblance of an organism, escape his vision. His lofty figure, clothed in the plainest dress, mingled, without ostentation with his fellowmen everywhere. He had less mannerism as a public speaker than any of his contemporaries. He was unaffected, plain and simple, yet he rose to flights of eloquence that excited the admiration of his listeners. As a statesman he is justly entitled to rank with Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison and their compeers. He was nineteen years old when in the battle at Lexington. He was appointed lieutenant of a military company and walked ten miles with his gun on his shoulder to the muster grounds. The captain was absent ; he took charge of the company and drilled it. He was dressed in a blue hunting shirt with pantaloons of the same cloth. His hat was ornamented with with a deer's tail in lieu of a cockade. After he finished drilling his militia he