The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 79, July 1975 - April, 1976 Page: 58
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
age in San Antonio and was arrested by Federal troops at the outbreak of
the Civil War. He was soon paroled and went to Washington, D.C., in
1861. It is not known if Potter ever again returned to Texas. His only child,
a daughter, died in 1875, and that same year he went on sick leave from
the army. He remained on leave until he retired in 1882. He lost his wife
in 1885; and on March 18, 1890, at the age of eighty-eight, Potter died
and was buried in Woodbridge. A fellow army officer described him as
"small in stature, kind ... firm, and brave.... [who] went safely through
times when the arguments used by frontiersmen to settle differences in taste
and opinion were Bowie knives and Derringer pistols, and when death
was sometimes the penalty for declining a Texas stranger's invitation to
take a drink." Potter's name is inscribed on a monument celebrating the
creation of Cameron County, Texas, and his portrait, painted by H. A.
McArdle, was hung in the Texas State Senate chamber in 1939.'
Potter had a definite literary bent. His strongest childhood memory, he
recalled, was attending a play, "The Tragedy of Douglas at the Elm,"
put on by local talent. In Texas he made contacts with men essentially
literary like himself-James H. Kuykendall, journalist and Spanish inter-
preter for General Zachary Taylor; John C. Duval, known as "the first
Texas man of letters"; and Francis W. Johnson, the soldier-historian and
Texana collector. Potter himself became a recognized historian and poet,
and this serious interest in letters helps explain his cosmopolitan attitude
toward Hispanic elements in Texas.o
Hispanic content appeared, in fact, in much of Potter's writing. His
translations included a poem, "Tejas" (written in I8o8 by a former bishop
of Monterrey, Primo Feliciano Marin de Porras) and a ballad he heard
from a blind beggar woman in Matamoros, called "The Lady Isabel."'1
9Leach, "Reuben Marmaduke Potter," 61-63, 66-68, 74, 99, IIo-II, 112 (quota-
tion), 115; Webb and Carroll (eds.), Handbook of Texas, II, 4or.
10Leach, "Reuben Marmaduke Potter," 39. The papers of Kuykendall, Duval, and
Johnson in the archives of the University of Texas at Austin contain letters and refer-
ences to Potter. Kuykendall wrote a series of fourteen sketches of early Texians, including
one of Potter. A typescript copy can be found among his papers. Kuykendall states there
that, although he never became acquainted with Potter, he saw him at Matamoros in
January, I836, and afterwards in Texas. He also expressed a high opinion of Potter's
poetry and prose. C. W. Raines credits Potter with a "style clear and vigorous," and
"an invaluable contribution to the military history of Texas." Raines, A Bibliography of
Texas: Being a Descriptive List of Books, Pamphlets, and Documents Relating to Texas
in Print and Manuscript since 1536, Including a Complete Collation of the Laws; With
an Introductory Essay on the Materials of Early Texan History (Austin, 1896), 167.
Sam H. Dixon writes of his poem, "Hymn of the Alamo": "This one poem is sufficient
to place him among the greatest writers of our dear Southland." Dixon, The Poets and
Poetry of Texas (Austin, 1885), 229.
"Marin was Bishop of Nuevo Le6n and Monterrey from 1802 to 1815 and had made
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 79, July 1975 - April, 1976, periodical, 1975/1976; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101203/m1/76/?q=%22oil-gas%22: accessed July 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Texas State Historical Association.