Centreville, Sept. 2d.
Did I tell you that I saw my classmate, William J. Potter,
in Washington? Potter was settled as clergyman in New Bedford, was drafted,
preached an excellent sermon on the “draft,” saying he should go if accepted,
and that meanwhile (previous to the examination) he should use every means to
improve his muscle and should feel much humiliation if rejected as unfit to
fight for his country.1 Some one sent the sermon to Stanton; Stanton
wrote asking him to come at once to Washington. Potter declined, saying “if
accepted he should be under orders, but he preferred to take his chance with
others.” He was accepted, and just afterward received another letter from
Stanton asking him as a particular favour to come on and confer with him; so
Potter was in Washington as an enlisted man on furlough, in a full suit of
black. Stanton had had one “conference” with him, and finding that he did not
think himself very fit for a chaplaincy with a regiment, had told him he wanted
to keep him in Washington, that he wanted such men there, and had proposed to
make him chaplain to a hospital, pro forma, with outside duties, —
Potter was to see him again in the evening and to breakfast with him the next
morning. Such little things as that make me like Stanton, with all his ferocity
of manner. He acts on impulses. and is often wrong, but oftener right;
on large questions, he is almost always right, I believe. I think . Stanton
must have the credit in the Cabinet of having carried through the “Negro Army,”
in spite of great opposition there, and some doubts at the White House. It was
very pleasant to see old Potter again, coming out all right.
_______________
1 Mr. William [James] Potter, of Quaker ancestry and
great virtues and gifts, was pastor of a large, intelligent, and rich society
in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and highly esteemed. On July 3, 1863, he was
drafted for a soldier, under the new Conscription Act. On the following Sunday
he preached to his people a manly sermon, “The Voice of the Draft,” from the
text “Make full proof of thy ministry” (2 Tim. iv, 5), strongly stating the duty and
privilege, even for scholars and men with no natural military tastes, to serve
in such a war, in such an emergency of the country. Secretary Stanton read it,
and had it at once published in the Army and Navy Gazette, as the word
for the hour. He set Mr. Potter the important task of visiting and inspecting
all the U. S. hospitals in or near Washington, which he did well and
thoroughly, reporting their needs. Then, as chaplain to the convalescent
hospital, he lived there in a little hut with his young wife, but resigned to
join in the vast and beneficent work of the Sanitary Commission. Afterwards he
returned to his church in New Bedford. He was one of the founders and chief
workers in the Free Religious Association.
When young Potter was in college, he began to feel strongly
drawn to the ministry, yet sorely doubting his fitness. “What society or sect
must I go with, believing with none? I have in my mind, it is true, an ideal
minister, different from any real one whom it was ever my lot to know.” His
success was in the measure he approached this ideal.
SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of
Charles Russell Lowell, p. 299-301, 442-3
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