LaFayette Curry Baker, (born Oct. 13, 1826, Stafford, N.Y., U.S.—died July 3, 1868, Philadelphia, Pa.), chief of the U.S. Federal Detective Police during the American Civil War and director of Union intelligence and counterintelligence operations.
In 1848 Baker left his home in Michigan, where the family had moved when he was a child, and worked at a variety of occupations in the West. In 1856 he joined the San Francisco Vigilance Command (known as the Vigilantes), a group of self-appointed police whose operations were characterized by arbitrariness and lack of due process. In the next four years he was often employed in an undercover capacity and became adept at techniques of deception and disguise. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, he went to Washington, D.C., and offered his services to General Winfield Scott. Sent to reconnoitre the Richmond, Va., area, he was arrested as a spy but escaped while Confederate president Jefferson Davis sought to determine the validity of the charge.
Baker later worked as a detective in the War Department, the State Department, and the Post Office before succeeding Allan Pinkerton as head of the federal secret service in November 1862. Baker soon penetrated every area of the military and the civil government of the Union as well as the Confederacy, using hundreds of agents and detectives deployed in two forces whose members were unknown to each other.
Baker adopted the motto “Death to Traitors” for himself and his service. He maintained a headquarters and a prison in the Old Capitol building, where he detained many citizens on flimsy evidence or mere suspicion and subjected them to intensive interrogation to extract confessions and information. In 1863 he raised a battalion of cavalry, officially known as the 1st District of Columbia Cavalry but more widely called Baker’s Rangers. The unit was used primarily as a counter-guerrilla force against J.S. Mosby and his raiders and was expanded to a full regiment before the war was over.
In 1864 Baker personally uncovered a major fraud in the Treasury Department; broke up the “Northwest Conspiracy,” a plan by Confederate terrorists to carry the war to the cities of the North by arson and other means; and uncovered acts of trading with the enemy by prominent Union officials. After Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865, Baker personally planned and managed the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth and his accomplice, D.E. Herold. Baker was accused of negligence in Lincoln’s death but, in fact, had no direct responsibility for the president’s protection and was on duty in New York when the assassination occurred. His quick response won him a long-sought promotion to brigadier general.
After the Civil War Baker continued his police and intelligence activities, paying particular attention to a large trade in pardons for former Confederates that reached into the White House. Baker, whose disdain for due process frequently left him open to political attack, eventually resigned his post, and his secret service was disbanded when Congress refused it further funding. Baker later testified at Johnson’s impeachment trial, making sensational but undocumented charges against the president. In 1867 he published History of the United States Secret Service.