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Senate Years of Service: 1860-1861 Party: Republican
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Library of Congress
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BAKER, Edward Dickinson, a Representative from Illinois and a Senator from Oregon; born in
London, England, February 24, 1811; immigrated to the United States in 1815
with his parents, who settled in Philadelphia, Pa.; moved to Illinois in 1825;
studied law; admitted to the bar in 1830 and commenced practice in Springfield;
member, State house of representatives 1837; member, State senate 1840-1844;
elected as a Whig to the Twenty-ninth Congress and served from March 4, 1845,
until his resignation on December 24, 1846, to take effect on January 15, 1847;
commissioned colonel of the Fourth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, on
July 4, 1846, and served until he was honorably mustered out on May 29, 1847;
participated in the siege of Vera Cruz and commanded a brigade at Cerro Gordo;
after the Mexican War moved to Galena, Ill.; elected as a Whig to the
Thirty-first Congress (March 4, 1849-March 3, 1851); was not a candidate for
renomination in 1850; moved to San Francisco, Calif., in 1851 and resumed the
practice of law; moved to Oregon in 1860; elected as a Republican to the United
States Senate to fill the vacancy in the term beginning March 4, 1859, and
served from October 2, 1860, until his death; raised a regiment in New York
City and Philadelphia during the Civil War; commissioned brigadier general of
Volunteers May 17, 1861, but declined; colonel of the Seventy-first Regiment,
Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry and major general of Volunteers 1861; killed in
the Battle of Balls Bluff, Va., October 21, 1861; interment in San Francisco
National Cemetery, San Francisco, Calif.
BibliographyDictionary of American Biography; Blair, Harry,
and Tarshis, Rebecca.
Colonel Edward D. Baker: Lincolns Constant Ally. Portland:
Oregon Historical Society, 1960; Braden, Gayle Anderson. The Public Career of
Edward Dickinson Baker. Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1960.
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