Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/764

708 the war. Since the return of peace he has spent most of his time in Richmond, engaged in the practice of law.

Major William J. Baker, of the Confederate States army, a brother of Gen. Lawrence S. Baker, and a descendant of Gen. Lawrence Baker, of the Continental army, was born in North Carolina, a son of Dr. John B. Baker, a leading physician of Gates county, and for many years a prominent member of the legislature of that State. He was educated for the legal profession, and on reaching manhood was admitted to practice by the supreme court of the State. He pursued the practice of law until North Carolina entered the Confederacy, when he volunteered for military duty, and was assigned to the general staff of the army. Early in his military career he was on duty at headquarters in Norfolk, and later was in the field as a member of the staff of Gen. J. J. Pettigrew, until that officer was killed during the retreat from Gettysburg. At the time of the surrender at Appomattox he was post commander at Raleigh, N. C., and at once repaired to the headquarters of Gen. J. E. Johnston, with whom he was surrendered at Greensboro. Subsequently he made his home at Norfolk, and was engaged in the practice of law and business pursuits until his death in 1882. The wife of Major Baker was Sarah F. Collins, of Portsmouth, who died in 1889. Their son. William Lawrence Baker, was born at Norfolk, July 29, 1857, and was educated at the school of Prof. N. B. Webster, Norfolk, and Brigham's school at Mebaneville, N. C. Subsequently he was for three years employed by the Merchants' and Miners' transportation company, for several years was purser with the Washington steamship line, and after ten years' service as a cotton weigher, resigned that position for the office of city collector, to which he was elected in 1896. He was formerly a member of the Light Artillery Blues, and is connected with several fraternal orders.

Colonel John Brown Baldwin, one of the most loved leaders of the Virginia people during the period following the war of the Confederacy, was born at Spring Farm, near Staunton, January 11, 1820, and died September 30, 1873. He was the eldest son of the late Judge Briscoe G. Baldwin, of the supreme court of appeals, whose wife was Martha Steele Brown, daughter of Judge John Brown, chancellor of the Staunton circuit. Destined by ancestral inspiration and his own inclinations to a legal career, he obtained a liberal education at Staunton academy and the university of Virginia, and then entered the law office of his father. At the age of twenty-one he became the professional partner of his brother-in-law, Hon. A. H. H. Stuart, and three years later embarked upon an independent career as a practitioner. On September 20, 1842, he was married to Susan Madison, eldest daughter of the eminent lawyer, John Howe Peyton. As a whig he participated in the political campaign of 1844, and at the age of twenty-four years first attracted public attention to his remarkable powers as an orator. At this time, as throughout his life, the great power of his oratory lay in the strength of his arguments, his firm and unwavering grasp of the essential points at issue, and the consciousness of his audience that he honestly believed every word he said. He was not ornate, but his sentences were full of meaning and fell with sledge-hammer weight. Elected to the legislature he soon distinguished himself, and courageously took such ground regarding the proposed new