Samuel’s early education varied between a small school and tutors. The fact that his father asked his English commissioning agent for advice about tutors was perhaps a sign that he was not satisfied with a current one. In the early 1770’s, a friend recommended he send Samuel to school in England at Eton or Westminster, but given the unsettled nature of the times, William chose to have him finish his schooling in Amherst County.
Samuel enrolled at the College of William & Mary in 1772 when he was just shy of 16 years old. While Williamsburg was 135 miles from home in Amherst County, his father was a regular visitor there to attend the House of Burgesses. Samuel’s course of study likely followed the traditional classics-heavy curriculum of the day intended to train graduates for a career in the clergy, law, or public service. By the 1770’s the curriculum may have included mathematics and natural science. His education outside the classroom may have been expanded by debating the issues of the day in student groups, perhaps influenced by the contemporary writers of the Enlightenment.
William & Mary was firmly tied to Church of England and the Crown. The ceremonial position of chancellor, was filled either by the Bishop of London or the Archbishop of Canterbury, who at times provided financial support. The faculty were almost exclusively Oxford trained and ordained Anglican ministers. The college was so beholden to royal authority, that some collegiate disputes and appeals found their way all the way to the Royal Privy Council and the King himself. The Board of Visitors, however, were mostly Virginia landed gentry whose interests were diverging from the Crown. Starting in the 1750s and into the 1770’s, there was an unmistakable tension between the loyalist leadership on one side and the students and board of visitors on the other. In contrast, Princeton’s leadership supported the college’s role as a “seedbed of revolution”. Its President, John Witherspoon, would later be a signer of the Declaration of Independence. William & Mary’s president in 1775, the Reverend John Camm, most decidedly would not become a founding father. One of his faculty, however, would become a founder. James Madison taught Natural Philosophy in 1775.
By the fall of Samuel’s senior year, things were reaching the boiling point in Virginia. In November 1775 there was an engagement near Norfolk between the militia and Lord Dunmore’s forces, followed by the Battle of Great Bridge in December 9. His father, who was attending a Committee of Safety Meeting in Williamsburg, at once sent Samuel home, where he arrived on December 13.
In January 1776, the convention passed “an ordinance for raising an additional number of forces for the defense and protection of this colony”. Amherst County was required to furnish “one company of expert riflemen. The captain had to recruit 28 men, plus officers, who had to be ready to depart on March 25, 1776. On February 5, 1776, the county committee selected Samuel Cabell for captain, along with other officers who went to work recruiting the balance of the company. The company was completed and officers commissioned by March 4. On March 12, they met at Key’s old church (Fairmont Church in Nelson County as of the 1890s) and started the march east. His father’s pocket diary notes “March 24th. Capt. Cabell arrived in Williamsburg with his company after a march of twelve days. All Well”.