A Firebrand Meets His End

   Edward D. Baker was a one-time Illinois lawyer and an intimate friend of Abraham Lincoln. He went west during the California gold rush and wound up in Oregon in 1860, where he was elected to the United States Senate.
   When the Civil War broke out, no one was more pro-Union than Senator Baker. "I want a sudden, bold, forward, determined war," he proclaimed after the firing on Fort Sumter. So intent was he on punishing the South that he joined the army as a colonel while holding on to his seat in the Senate. Colonel/Senator Edward Baker divided his time between the Army and the Senate. From time to time he would return from the field, appearing in full uniform on the floor of the Senate, where he would unbuckle his sword, lay it across his desktop, and launch into an oratorical attack upon those of his fellow lawmakers who appeared to favor any compromise with secession.
   Then on October 21, 1861, he took leave of his Senate desk to lead his regiment up Ball's Bluff, on the Potomac. His task was to cross the river and disperse the Confederate snipers who fired at will from the brush and timber atop the bluff. There was no doubt in Baker's mind that his troops would carry the day. He reckoned, however, without the tenacity of the Mississippi and Virginia soldiers who commanded the bluff.
   For the Rebels it was a turkey shoot. panic quickly ran through the Union ranks, and in short order they were frantically sliding back down the bluff and heading toward the Maryland side. as telegraphic accounts of the rout reached the president, both he and Congress awaited the fiery report from Baker that was sure to come, but this was not to be. Baker had taken the Senate floor for his last time. His body lay back up on the bluffs, the victim of the deadly snipers fire that took 200 other lives.
   Thus the senator who had so dramatically prodded his fellow legislators while adorned in his military garb, had fallen victim to his own rhetoric. It was one thing to harangue the halls of Congress in favor of military action. it was quite another to put one's own words into action. As a senator and a soldier, Edward Baker did both and paid for it with his life.