After graduation from West Point he served in the US Mounted Rifles, acheiving rank of 1st Lt in 1859. He resigned his US commission in May 1861. He was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel, Confederate States Cavalry, to date from March 16, 1861, and on May 8th was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Ninth North Carolina regiment, afterward known as the First North Carolina cavalry. On March 1, 1862, he was promoted Colonel of his regiment.
In the engagements at the gap in the Catoctin and near Middletown [13 Sept] the Jeff. Davis Legion and First North Carolina Cavalry, respectively under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Martin and Colonel [L. S.] Baker, conducted themselves with the utmost gallantry, and sustained a hot fire of artillery and musketry without flinching or confusion in the ranks."
After Gen Hampton's wounding at Gettysburg (Juky 1863), Col Baker led his brigade. He was wounded at Brandy Station (July 31, 1863) and was recommended for promotion to Brigadier General, which was promptly confirmed. In the subsequent reorganization of the cavalry he was assigned to the command of a brigade composed exclusively of North Carolina regiments, the First, Second, Fourth and Fifth. But the wound he had received at Brandy Station was a serious one - the bones of his arm being completely shattered, and the use of it lost to him, in consequence of which he was unable to continue his service with the cavalry.
His were primarily administrative military duties til the end of the War, except at the very end when he was recalled to active commands in defense of Federal General Sherman's Campaign.
He lived at New Bern for awhile, and near Norfolk, Va., carried on a trucking business, after which he returned to North Carolina, and was engaged in insurance until 1877. He then became an agent of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad (Suffolk, Va).
Jeff Weaver's North Carolina Civil War Home Page.