Carolina Casanova Casualty of Texas Feud

Midshipman Robert Potter resigned from the U.S. Navy on Mar. 20, 1821 and headed home to North Carolina to raise a little hell.

When the ex-sailor was not studying the law, he was raking the Tar Heel elite over the coals. A sharp-tongued critic of the privileged planter class, he wrote sarcastic poems publicly humiliating cowardly aristocrats who declined his invitation to a duel.

Potter’s soaring popularity with the common man won him a seat in the North Carolina legislature, the House of Commons. His tell-it-like-it-is appeal soon earned him a promotion to the U.S. Congress, where everyone predicted big things for ambitious Bobby Potter.