Arkansas, but word of his crimes had spread, and a local woman named Beth Warthom was openly critical of him. He took several hickory switches to her house and threatened to beat her. Her husband, David Warthom, began to fight with Baker, and overwhelmed him in front of the house. Beth screamed, and as her husband looked her way, he was stabbed once with a knife Baker had in his possession. Warthom died on the spot. Baker fled back to Texas, and in July 1862, he married his second wife Martha Foster, who was unaware that he was wanted for murder. She was a daughter of William and Elizabeth Young Foster. American Civil War and after Baker served with the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, joining shortly after his second marriage. It is claimed he shot and killed at least three African Americans, killing a black woman in an immigrant train and later shooting a black boy six times with a pistol after taking the Oath of Allegiance and becoming an overseer of Freemen. By 1864 he had either been discharged or deserted, and he joined a group called the "Independent Rangers", loosely associated with the Confederate Home Guard. It was intended to pursue and capture deserters from the Confederate Army, but more often than not took advantage of most of the men being away at war, leaving mostly elderly men, women and children. This left the door open for acts of intimidation, rape, theft and violence for groups of well-armed men like the "Independent Rangers". Shortly after Baker joined the "Independent Rangers" they began an ongoing feud with another band called the "Mountain Boomers", but by the end of that year the "Boomers" had been driven out or forced to disperse due to several of their members having been killed by the "Rangers". In November 1864, Baker led a group of "Rangers" to intercept a band of Arkansas settlers, mostly older men, women and children, who had fled Perry County, Arkansas for a better life out west. Baker allegedly considered this "un-patriotic", but more likely than not his motives were simple robbery. The "Rangers" caught up with these fleeing settlers as they were crossing the Saline River somewhere in the Ouachita Mountains, but when the settlers refused to return Baker drew his pistol and shot and killed the group's leader. With assurances from Baker that he would