for renomination in 1850. In July 1850, he proposed to the Panama Railroad Company that he recruit men to help build the railroad. Baker agreed to pay their expenses from St. Louis and in Panama, and the company would send them on to San Francisco by May 1. He became ill in Panama with a tropical disease and had to return to the U.S. Military service Commissioned on July 4, 1846, as Colonel of the Fourth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, he participated with his regiment in the Siege of Vera Cruz, and also commanded one of the brigades involved in the Battle of Cerro Gordo. He continued to serve with his regiment until he was honorably mustered out on May 29, 1847. After his honorable discharge, he engaged in a 14-year break from military service, during which he served in the Thirty-first U.S. Congress from 1849 to 1851, relocated to San Francisco, where he practiced law and, in 1860, relocated to Oregon, where he was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate to fill a vacancy in the term beginning March 4, 1859. In response to President Abraham Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers to help defend the nation's capital following the fall of Fort Sumter to Confederate forces in mid-April 1861, he raised a regiment at the dawn of the American Civil War, recruiting soldiers from New York City and Philadelphia. Offered a commission as brigadier-general of volunteers on May 17, 1861, he declined the honor, opting instead to serve as the colonel of the Seventy-first Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry and major-general of volunteers 1861; however, his tenure was short-lived. On October 21, 1861, he was killed in the Battle of Balls Bluff, Virginia. His remains were subsequently returned to California, and laid to rest at the San Francisco National Cemetery. California politician After Baker did not get a Cabinet position under President Zachary Taylor, he moved to San Francisco in 1852. He operated a successful law practice, despite what some described as sloppy business practices and inattention to detail, characterizations that had plagued him earlier: as a legislator, he was said to pay little attention to mundane details. Baker met Isaac J. Wistar, sixteen years Baker's junior and from a prominent Philadelphia family. He said Baker did not keep records and relied on his memory and a bundle of papers he carried around in his hat. Baker