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 p…