High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Benjamin Franklin Potts (January 29, 1836 – June 17, 1887) was a lawyer, politician, and soldier from the state of Ohio who served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, as well as a postbellum Governor of the Montana Territory from 1870 to 1883. He commanded a brigade of infantry in the Western Theater in some of the war`s most important campaigns and repeatedly received commendations for gallantry and tactical judgement in combat.