He seems to have found a copy of Blackstone in his father’s house, as he had found there much other sterling English literature. It was then a new book, but already famous. Published in England in 1765-69, a thousand copies had been taken in this country;[2] and just now the first American edition was out (Philadelphia, 1771-72), in which the list of subscribers, headed by the name of “John Adams, barrister at law, Boston,” had also that of “Captain Thomas Marshall, Clerk of Dunmore County.” Dunmore County, now Shenandoah, was then a very new county, just over the Blue Ridge from Fauquier; and it is believed that there was but one Captain Thomas Marshall in those parts. The earliest personal description of Marshall that we have belongs to this period. It is preserved in Horace Binney’s admirable address at Philadelphia, after Marshall’s death. He gives it from the pen of an eyewitness, a “venerable kinsman” of Marshall. News had come, in May, 1775, of the fighting at Concord and Lexington. The account shows us the youth, as lieutenant, drilling a company of soldiers in Fauquier County:-- “He was about six feet high, straight, and rather slender, of dark complexion, showing little if any rosy red, yet good health, the outline of the face nearly a circle, and within that, eyes dark to blackness,[3] strong and penetrating, beaming with intelligence and good nature; an upright forehead, rather low, was terminated in a horizontal line by a mass of raven-black hair, of unusual thickness and strength. The features of the face were in harmony with this outline, and the temples fully developed. The result of this combination was interesting and very agreeable. The body and limbs indicated agility rather than strength, in which, however, he was by no means deficient. He wore a purple or pale blue hunting-shirt, and trousers of the same material fringed with white. A round black hat, mounted with the buck’s tail for a cockade, crowned the figure and the man. He went through the manual exercise by word and motion, deliberately pronounced and performed in the presence of the company, before he required the men to imitate him; and then proceeded to exercise them with the most perfect temper.... “After a few lessons the company were dismissed, and informed that if they wished to hear more about the war, and would form a circle about him, he would tell them what he understood about it. The circle was formed, and he addressed the company for something like an hour. He then challenged an acquaintance to a game of quoits, and they closed the day with foot-races and other athletic exercises, at which there was no betting.” “This,” adds Mr. Binney, “is a portrait, to which in simplicity, gayety of heart, and manliness of spirit, in everything but the symbols of the youthful soldier, and one or two of those lineaments which the hand of time, however gentle, changes and perhaps improves, he never lost his resemblance.”