Potts, William

Flourished: Sangamon County, Illinois

From April to July of 1832, Potts served consecutively in three different companies of mounted volunteer militia during the Black Hawk War. In two of those companies, he served as a private alongside Abraham Lincoln.

Muster Roll of Captain Jacob M. Early’s Company of Mounted Volunteers; Muster Roll of Captain Elijah Iles’ Company of Mounted Volunteers; Ellen M. Whitney, comp., The Black Hawk War, 1831-1832: Illinois Volunteers, vol. 35 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1970), 1:173-74, 206, 228-29, 545.