At the same time that John Marshall, the subject of this work, was captain in a Virginia regiment, two other John Marshalls were captains in Pennsylvania regiments. When Thomas Marshall of Virginia was an officer in Washington's army, there were four other Thomas Marshalls, two from Massachusetts, one from South Carolina, and one from Virginia, all Revolutionary officers. (Ib.)
When Stony Point was taken by Wayne, among the British prisoners captured was Lieutenant John Marshall of the 17th Regiment of British foot (see Dawson, 86); and Captain John Marshall of Virginia was one of the attacking force. (See infra, chap. IV.)
In 1792, John Marshall of King and Queen County, a boatswain, was a Virginia pensioner. (Va. Hist. Prs., v, 544.) He was not related to John Marshall, who had become the leading Richmond lawyer of that time.
While Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury he received several letters from John Marshall, an Englishman, who was in this country and who wrote Hamilton concerning the subject of establishing manufactories. (Hamilton MSS., Lib. Cong.)
Illustrations like these might be continued for many pages. They merely show the danger of inferring relationship because of the similarity of names, especially one so general as that of Marshall.
[52] The Cary Papers, supra. Here again the Marshall legend riots fantastically. This time it makes the pirate Blackbeard the first husband of Marshall's paternal grandmother; and with this freebooter she is said to have had thrilling and melancholy experiences. It deserves mention only as showing the absurdity of such myths. Blackbeard was one Edward Teach, whose career is well authenticated (Wise, 186.) Colonel Cary put a final quietus on this particular tale, as he did on so many other genealogical fictions.
[53] See Douglas: Peerage of Scotland (1764), 448. Also Burke: Peerage (1903), 895; and ib. (1876). This peerage is now extinct. See Burke: Extinct Peerages.
[54] For appreciation of this extraordinary man see Carlyle's Frederick the Great.
[55] Paxton, 30.
[56] From data furnished by Justice James Keith, President of the Court of Appeals of Virginia.