Edward Dickinson Baker Edward Dickinson Baker ( February 24 , 1811October 21 , 1861 ) was an English - born American politician , lawyer , and military leader . In his political career , Baker served in the U . S . House of Representatives from Illinois and later as a U . S . Senator from Oregon . A long - time close friend of U . S . President Abraham Lincoln , Baker served as U . S . Army colonel during both the Mexican - American War and the American Civil War . Baker was killed in the Battle of Ball ' s Bluff while leading a Union Army regiment , becoming the only sitting senator to be killed in the Civil War . Early life . Born in London in 1811 to schoolteacher Edward Baker and Lucy Dickinson Baker , poor but educated Quakers , the boy Edward Baker and his family left England and immigrated to the United States in 1816 , arriving in Philadelphia , where Baker ' s father established a school . Ned attended his father ' s school before quitting to apprentice as a loom operator in a weaving factory . In 1825 , the family left Philadelphia and traveled to New Harmony , Indiana , a utopia n community on the Ohio River led by Robert Owen and sought to follow communitarian ideals . The family left New Harmony in 1826 and moved to Belleville in Illinois Territory , a town near St . Louis . Baker and his father bought a horse and cart and started a drayage business that young Ned operated in St . Louis . Baker met Governor Ninian Edwards , who allowed Baker access to his private law library . Later he moved to Carrollton , Illinois , where he was admitted to the bar in 1830 . On April 27 , 1831 , he married Mary Ann Lee ; they would have five children together . Illinois lawyer . Shortly after his marriage , Baker affiliated with the Disciples of Christ and engaged in part - time preaching , which as a by - product served to spread awareness of his skill in public oratory , an activity that eventually made him famous . A year after his marriage , Baker participated in the Black Hawk War but did not engage in hostilities . Around 1835 , he became acquainted with Abraham Lincoln and soon became involved in local politics , being elected to the Illinois House of Representatives on July 1 , 1837 , and serving on the Illinois Senate from 1840 to 1844 . In 1844 , while living in Springfield , he defeated Lincoln for the nomination for the 7th U . S . congressional seat and was elected as a Whig . Baker and Lincoln became fast friends , however — an association which lent credibility to a claim that Baker baptized Lincoln ; this claim is denied as apocryphal by later leaders of the Restoration Movement with which Baker ' s church of Christ was associated . Baker served in Congress from March 4 , 1845 , until his resignation on December 24 , 1846 , to take effect on January 15 , 1847 . He resigned in a dispute over the legality of his serving in Congress and the army . The controversy arose from Article I , Section 6 , of the U . S . Constitution , the so - called Incompatibility Clause , which prohibits an “ officer of the United States ” serving in either house of Congress . The two remained close friends , however , with Lincoln naming one of his sons Edward Baker Lincoln , affectionately called " Eddie . " Lincoln and Baker occasionally competed in Fives , a form of handball . In September 1844 , Baker exhibited impetuous bravado in an incident arising out of the murder of Joseph Smith , the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement , by a mob in a jail near Nauvoo , Illinois . As a colonel in the local militia , Baker was part of a group pursuing the mob leaders , who had fled across the Mississippi River into Missouri . Rather than wait for others to join him , Baker crossed the river and apprehended the fugitives . During the Mexican - American War , Baker briefly dropped out of politics and was commissioned as a Colonel of the Fourth Regiment of the Illinois Volunteer Infantry , on July 4 , 1846 . In the Battle of Cerro Gordo , the regiment was assigned to General James Shields ' s Illinois brigade in General D . E . Twigg ’ s division . When Shields was badly wounded in an artillery barrage , Baker boldly led the brigade against the entrenched artillery battery , resulting in the capture of the guns . General Winfield Scott later said , “ The brigade so gallantly led by General Shields , and , after his fall , by Colonel Baker , deserves high commendation for its fine behavior and success . ” Soon after Cerro Gordo , the enlistment period ended for men of the 4th Illinois and they returned to New Orleans and were discharged on May 25 . Baker returned to Springfield in 1848 , but , rather than run against Lincoln again for nomination to Congress , Baker moved to Galena , where he was nominated and elected as a Whig to the 31st Congress ( March 4 , 1849 - March 4 , 1851 ) . He was not a candidate for renomination in 1850 . In July 1850 , he proposed to the Panama Railroad Company that he recruit men to help build the railroad . Baker agreed to pay their expenses from St . Louis and in Panama , and the company would send them on to San Francisco by May 1 . He became ill in Panama with a tropical disease and had to return to the U . S . California politician . After Baker did not get a Cabinet position under President Zachary Taylor , he moved to San Francisco in 1852 . He operated a successful law practice , despite what some described as sloppy business practices and inattention to detail , characterizations that had plagued him earlier : as a legislator , he was said to pay little attention to mundane details . Baker met Isaac J . Wistar , sixteen years Baker ’ s junior and from a prominent Philadelphia family . He said Baker did not keep records and relied on his memory and a bundle of papers he carried around in his hat . Baker disdained preparing for legal cases and thought it was more effective to speak extemporaneously to a jury . Baker received substantial fees but spent the money as fast as it came in , Wistar said , and some of those expenditures paid faro debts . The two formed a successful partnership at Montgomery and Jackson Streets . California had been admitted to the United States in 1850 as a free state , but by the later part of the 1850s , the state was being pulled in different directions over the issue of slavery , and Baker became a leader in the movement to keep California in the Union . In 1855 , he ran for a seat in the state senate as a Whig on the Free Soil Party party ticket but lost because the Whig party had collapsed . It was in those days that Baker picked up the name “ Gray Eagle ” because of his gray hair ( though he was balding ) . He was just under six feet tall . Baker became involved in a notorious criminal case in 1855 that threatened his legal and political future . He was criticized for defending Charles Cora , a gambler accused of killing a United States marshal . The jury failed to reach a verdict , and Cora was lynched by a vigilante mob . The experience led Baker to become active in the Law and Order Party , which opposed actions of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance , which took the law into its own hands . Because of the committee ’ s criticism of his actions , Baker temporarily left the city and spent some time in the Sacramento area . Oregon politician . Frustrated by his failure to win a seat in the U . S . House of Representatives in 1859 , Baker looked to greener political pastures to the north . Oregon held special interest for people who had once lived in Illinois , including men he had known in Springfield . He had become interested in Oregon politics in 1857 , when Dr . Anson Henry , a friend from Springfield who had moved to Oregon , told Baker he could win the Senate election there . After statehood was achieved on February 14 , 1859 , Oregon Republicans asked Baker to come to their state to run for the Senate and counter the Democratic strength there . By the end of February 1860 , the Baker family had moved into a house in Salem on what is now the campus of Willamette University . Baker opened a law office and started campaigning for Republicans around the state . In Salem on July 4 , he acknowledged the rumbles of secession threats and proclaimed his willingness to die for his country : “ If it be reserved for me to lay my unworthy life upon the altar of my country in defending it from internal assailants , I declare here today that I aspire to no higher glory than that the sun of my life may go down beneath the shadow of freedom ’ s temple and baptize the emblem of the nation ’ s greatness , the Stars and Stripes , that float so proudly before us today , in my heart ’ s warmest blood . ” The Oregon legislature met in Salem in September 1860 to elect two men to the Senate . In an effort to keep Baker from receiving the required majority of 26 votes , six proslavery senators left the meeting and hid in a barn to prevent a quorum . They were brought back , and the legislators reached a compromise on October 7 and elected James Nesmith , a Douglas Democrat , and Baker . The Douglas Democrats supported Baker because of his sincerity and support of popular sovereignty . U . S . Senator . Baker took his seat in the Senate on December 5 , 1860 . His Oregon colleague , Senator Joseph Lane , disliked him so much that he refused to follow tradition and introduce Baker to the Senate , so Democratic Senator Milton Latham of California did it . On December 31 , Senator Judah Benjamin of Louisiana argued that Southern states had a constitutional right to secede and that other states would soon join South Carolina , which had seceded on December 20 . Baker refuted Benjamin ’ s argument in a three - hour speech a day later . He acknowledged that he was opposed to interference with slave owners in slave states , but he was also opposed to secession and the extension of slavery into new territories and states . In March 1861 , he indicated a willingness to compromise on some issues to prevent the breakup of the country . Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4 , 1861 . Baker and Senator James A . Pearce of Maryland faced backward in the presidential carriage as they rode from the White House to the Capitol , and Lincoln and outgoing President James Buchanan faced forward . On horseback at the head of their cavalry escort was the man who would figure prominently as Baker ’ s commander at the Battle of Ball ’ s Bluff . Colonel Charles P . Stone was an up - and - coming Union officer who was responsible for security in Washington for the inauguration . Stone spurred his horse to excite other horses in the escort party because he believed the prancing horses would form a better protective barrier and protect the dignitaries in the carriage . Baker introduced Lincoln to the audience gathered on the east portico of the Capitol : “ Fellow citizens , I introduce to you , Abraham Lincoln , President of the United States . ” Lincoln did not name Baker to his cabinet because his support in the Senate was so critical . If Baker had resigned his Senate seat , Oregon ’ s proslavery Democrat governor , John Whiteaker , would have appointed a proslavery Democrat to take his place . Death in battle . The Civil War began April 12 when Confederate artillery fired on Fort Sumter , and three days later , President Lincoln called for 75 , 000 volunteers . Baker left the Senate to go to New York City , where he spoke for two hours to a crowd of 100 , 000 in Union Square on April 19 . He was blunt : “ The hour for conciliation is past ; the gathering for battle is at hand , and the country requires that every man shall do his duty . ” He affirmed his own willingness to take up arms : “ If Providence shall will it , this feeble hand shall draw a sword , never yet dishonored , not to fight for honor on a foreign field , but for country , for home , for law , for government , for Constitution , for right , for freedom , for humanity . ” The following day , he met with 200 men from California who wanted to form a regiment that would symbolize the commitment of the West Coast to the Union cause . On May 8 , Baker was authorized by Secretary of War Simon Cameron to form the California Regiment with him as its commanding officer with the rank of colonel . Baker telegraphed Isaac J . Wistar , his San Francisco law partner , who was back in Philadelphia , and asked him to help recruit and organize the regiment . When Wistar asked about rank , Baker replied , “ I cannot at this moment accept military rank without jeopardizing my seat in the Senate . But you know my relations with Lincoln , and if you do that for me , I can assure you that within six months I shall be a Major - General and you shall have a Brigadier - General ’ s commission and a satisfactory command under me . ” Baker wrote to Lincoln on June 11 , asking that he be given a command that would “ not make him second to everybody . ” His efforts paid off ; on July 31 , Lincoln sent the Senate names of men he was recommending for appointments as brigadier generals . On the list , besides Charles Stone , Ulysses Grant and others , was Edward Baker . He told the Senate he would refuse the commission because of its doubtful legality . He said he was pleased that the government would allow him a command with his rank of colonel , “ quite sufficient for all my military aspirations , ” which indicates he believed he could be a colonel and remain in the Senate . He wrote to Lincoln on August 31 to decline the appointment as brigadier general , citing the problem of incompatibility and implying that he had the government ’ s permission to hold a colonel ’ s commission . To add to the mystery , the War Department notified Baker on September 21 that Lincoln had appointed him to be a major general . A list of Civil War generals based on official records indicates Baker held the rank of major general . He was assigned command of a brigade in Stone ' s division , guarding fords along the Potomac River north of Washington . At a dinner with Journalist George Wilkes in August , Baker predicted he would die in an early battle of the war : “ I am certain I shall not live through this war , and if my troops should show any want of resolution , I shall fall in the first battle . I cannot afford , after my career in Mexico , and as a Senator of the United States , to turn my face from the enemy . ” Baker stopped at the White House on October 20 to visit his old friend . Lincoln sat against a tree on the northeast White House lawn , while Baker lay on the ground with his hands behind his head . Willie Lincoln played in the leaves while the two men talked . Baker picked Willie up and kissed him before shaking the President ’ s hand as he left . Mary Lincoln gave Baker a bouquet of flowers , which he accepted graciously and sadly : “ Very beautiful . These flowers and my memory will wither together . ” On October 21 at the Battle of Ball ' s Bluff , at around four o ’ clock , he was struck by a volley of bullets through his heart and brain that killed him instantly . Wistar said that he and Baker had a brief discussion just prior to his being killed , and Baker said , “ The officer who dies with his men will never be harshly judged . ” President Lincoln was at General George McClellan ' s headquarters that evening when he got the news of Baker ’ s death . Charles Carleton Coffin of the Boston Journal saw Lincoln crying when he received the news of Baker ’ s death : “ With bowed head , and tears rolling down his furrowed cheeks , his face pale and wan , his heart heaving with emotion , he almost fell as he stepped into the street . ” At Baker ′ s funeral , Mary Todd Lincoln scandalized Washington by appearing in a lilac ensemble , including matching gloves and hat , rather than the traditional black . Despite Baker ′ s close friendship with her husband , she retorted , “ I wonder if the women of Washington expect me to muffle myself in mourning for every soldier killed in this great war ? ” After subsequent funerals in Philadelphia and New York City , Baker ’ s body was sent by ship and the Panama Railroad to San Francisco for burial . He is buried in Section OSD , Site 488 , San Francisco National Cemetery . Of himself , Baker once said , " my real forte is my power to command , to rule and lead men . I feel that I could lead men anywhere . " Baker ' s friends , however , thought his true talent lay in his gift of oratory . His death shocked official Washington and led to the formation of the Congressional Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War . Almost three years after his death , Baker ' s widow , Mary Ann , was placed on the government pension roll , receiving $ 55 per month . The Congressional bill which provided this relief is also viewable at the Library of Congress website . ( S . 122 )