These were all officers, even in that early day, and Marion himself held a lieutenancy--some proof that, however little we may know of the circumstances by which he secured the confidence of his neighbors, he was already in full possession of it.
How much of the future acts and successes of these brave men was due to the exercises and events of this Cherokee war, may reasonably be conjectured by every reader who knows the value of a stern apprenticeship to a hazardous profession.

Its successive campaigns against no inferior enemy, and under circumstances of peril and privation of no common order, were such as must have afforded them frequent opportunity of making themselves familiar equally with the exigencies and responsibilities of command.
* Moultrie in his Memoirs, vol.2, p.

223, would seem to settle the question in the negative, whether Marion was or was not in the preceding campaign.

He says, "General Marion and myself ENTERED THE FIELD OF MARS TOGETHER, in an expedition against the Cherokee Indians, under the command of Colonel James Grant, in 1761, when I had the honor to command a light infantry company in a provincial regiment; he was my first lieutenant.

He was an active, brave and hardy soldier, and an excellent partisan officer." This is very far however from being conclusive, inasmuch as we have seen that Marion 'entered the field of Mars' two years before, under the command of his brother, in the first campaign of Lyttleton against the Indians.