Baker, Nathaniel B.

BAKER

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Date: 2/18/2003 at 09:50:01

Nathaniel B. Baker, the widely known and most distinguished Adjutant General of the United States during the Civil War, was one of the early lawyers of Clinton. So much has been written of him and the details of his service to the State during the great war, for the preservation of the Union, that I shall attempt to give no more than a mere outline of his career. I knew him intimately from 1861 to the time of his death. We were both Democrats--I a very young one--when the great Rebellion broke out, were both classed as "War Democrats," and allied ourselves with the Republican Party in supporting the administration to suppress the Rebellion. I think it might be properly said that he and William F. Coolbaugh, of Burlington, were the most prominent leaders of the "War Democrats" in Iowa.
Much of the data comprising this sketch was extracted from an admirable paper of Lieutenant Governor Gue, read before the Pioneer Law Makers' Association at its reunion in 1892. General Baker was a native of New Hampshire, born at Hillsborough, in 1818. He was highly educated, and graduated at Harvard University in 1839. He studied law with Franklin Pierce, who afterward became President of the United States. He was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in 1842. For some three years he was one of the editors of the New Hampshire Patriot. In 1845 he was appointed Clerk in the Court of Common Pleas, and the following year, Clerk of the Superior Court of Merrimac County. In 1851 he was elected to the Legislature; at the end of the term he was re-elected and chosen Speaker of the House. In 1852 the Democratic Party was inclined to give New Hampshire the candidate for President, and Franklin Pierce and Nathaniel B. Baker were prominently named for the place. They were warm friends, and Baker being the younger, generously stood aside and used his influence for Pierce. Baker was chosen one of the Presidential electors, and gave his vote to his old friend and preceptor for President.
In 1854 Baker was nominated and elected by the Democrats, Governor of New Hampshire. He served with distinction, and not long after the close of his term, came West and settled in the new town of Clinton, in 1856. Here he entered upon the practice and soon became distinguished as a lawyer. In the fall of 1859 he was elected to the Legislature, and became one of the most prominent members of the House of 1860. When the secession of the southern states began, in 1861, Governor Kirkwood called a special session of the Legislature, in May of that year, to provide ways and means to equip and send into the field, Iowa's quota of volunteer soldiers. The State had no well-organized militia and it was a source of anxiety on the part of the State administration to know whether the leaders of the Democratic Party would give a cordial support to the necessary war measures recommended by Governor Kirkwood, to place Iowa on a war footing and thus enable the State to sustain President Lincoln and his administration in their efforts to suppress the Rebellion. Some of the leading Democrats who still entertained the hope of compromising with the South, and thus avoid war, were opposed to the war policy of the national administration, but Nathaniel B. Baker hesitated not for a moment, and hastened to assure Governor Kirkwood that, though a Democrat, he would use his utmost influence with his political friends to give the State and National administration a cordial support for the suppression of the Rebellion. He at once used his great influence to bring his party to the support of the most energetic war measures. I should not omit to mention in this connection that R. D. Kellogg, the eloquent, young Democratic member of the House, from Decatur County, ably seconded the efforts of General Baker. Baker was placed at the head of the Committee on Military Affairs and shaped most of the war measures enacted by the historic extra session of 1861. Under his leadership the necessary laws were enacted for putting Iowa on a war footing. Provision was made for the support of the families of volunteers, state bonds were authorized to be issued for $800,000 in order to provide a war and defense fund, and an auditing board created to supervise the expenditures.
Upon the adjournment of the extra session, Governor Kirkwood appointed General Baker Adjutant General of the State. He proved to be one of the ablest and most energetic of organizing officers in the nation. Under his supervision no state was more prompt in putting its quota in the field, no regiments were better officered or composed of better material, as was demonstrated on every battlefield in which Iowa soldiers were engaged. His office was a model of system and efficiency, and his records give a correct and concise history of the services of every Iowa soldier and officer that enlisted in the Union army. For every Iowa soldier who did his duty, he had a warm affection, which seemed to grow warmer with the lapse of years during all the remainder of his life; and no soldier or soldier's widow, in want or distress, ever appealed to General Baker in vain. "He would," says Governor Gue, "at all times deprive himself of any luxury, and often of necessary articles or the last dollar in his pocket, to aid a soldier in distress. I once saw him take off his overcoat and give it to a poorly clad old soldier in a bleak winter storm."
But his generous deeds were not confined to the soldiers. When the grasshopper scourge swept over the newly settled counties of northwestern Iowa, destroying the crops and leaving the people in a destitute condition, General Baker constituted himself an executive committee and superintended the gathering and distribution of supplies that relieved the pressing wants of thousands of suffering people.
His great accomplishments were not so much due to studious habits as they were to his quick discernment, his power of direction and command to others in carrying out details. He was keen in comprehension, quick and forceful in execution. His subordinates knew and appreciated his innate kindness, and faithfully sought to execute in detail his general commands, even though they were sometimes given with an abruptness bordering on roughness. He was frank, outspoken, sometimes bluff, open as the day. He had no sinister, no Janus-faced qualities. He knew men as if by inspiration and rarely, if ever, made mistakes in his judgment of men and their selection, whether soldiers or civilians, principals or subordinates. He was tall and commanding in appearance, though without the least pretense or vanity. He was ardently sincere in his nature and in everything he undertook.
He was but little past middle life when he died, in 1876, at the age of fifty-eight. His faithful service to the State during a period of unprecedented peril to it and the Nation had drawn to him the affection of the people, and the death of no man in the State was more sincerely mourned than his. After his death a memorial association was organized and funds freely contributed for a monument to his memory in Greenwood Cemetery at Des Moines. Through the efforts of Secretary of War, Honorable George McCrary, Congress, appropriated four brass cannons to be permanently stationed on the four sides of General Baker's last resting place. 
Source: Recollections and Sketches of Notable Lawyers and Public Men of Early Iowa. Author: Edward H. Stiles. Des Moines. The Homestead Publishing Co.,1916