Patton took an earnest part in the anti-slavery movement, and was chairman of the committee that presented to President Lincoln, September 13, 1862, the memorial [resolutions] from Chicago asking him to issue a proclamation of emancipation.

He was vice-president of the Northwestern sanitary commission during the American Civil War, and as such repeatedly visited the eastern and western armies, publishing several pamphlet reports.

In October 1861 Patton wrote new lyrics to the battle song John Brown's Body, the first with complete verses and a consistent meter.

After taking charge of a Congregational church in Boston, Massachusetts for three years, he became a pastor of one in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1846, and in Chicago, Illinois, in 1857.

From 1867-72, he was editor of The Advance in that city, and during 1874 he was lecturer on modern skepticism at Oberlin College (Ohio) and Chicago theological seminaries.