Brigadier General Joseph Hayden Potter was a classmate of Ulysses S. Grant at the military academy at West Point. In time, he would hold several posts in the West, including Commander of Fort Sanders.
Potter was part of a group gathered for a meeting regarding the Union Pacific Railroad at Fort Sanders in July of 1868. Other attendees included Generals P. H. Sheridan, U.S. Grant, William T. Sherman, W. S. Harney and John Gibbon.