Baker had served as a senator from Illinois, which is how Lincoln came to know him. He was a welcome guest at the Lincoln home in Springfield where he was called “Uncle Ned” by the children. Baker went to Oregon when it became a state in order to make his fortune, but he found himself chosen by the legislature as Oregon’s senator because of his prior experience.
When the Civil War broke out, Baker left the Senate to accept a commission as a Brigadier General in the Union Army. Just before leaving to go to war, Baker came to dinner with the Lincoln family at the White House where he gave the President the kind of dressing down that only a close friend could give.
Baker argued that the states were the source of the whole problem, and the first thing that should be done at the war’s conclusion should be to abolish the states entirely and reorganize the country into military districts for complete governance by the federal entity. Lincoln laughed his suggestion off and privately classified Baker with the “Jacobins”, his name for the men who would later become known as the Radical Republicans.
Baker died in Virginia at the Battle of Balls Bluff in a botched retreat. Had he lived, he would have joined the most extreme of the Radicals in Congress after the war. We dodged a bullet.
Imagine if GW had followed suit! Over half of the Congress would have been deported! right on! right on! right on!
I finally managed to find time to read this.
Thank you, very informative.