The whiskey was already in his hand when the four Black Union soldiers walked into the saloon at Spanish Bluffs, Arkansas. They asked for identification, and Cullen Baker, still wearing his Confederate hat, drew his pistol and shot them all—a sergeant first, then the three others, until the floor of the saloon ran with blood. The war was nearly over by then, the end of 1864, but Baker had no intention of laying down his arms. For the next four years, he would terrorize the states of Texas and Arkansas, leaving a trail of bodies that authorities and historians alike would rank among the most ruthless killing sprees the American frontier had ever seen.
Baker was born on June 22nd, 1835, in Weakley County, Tennessee, to John and Elizabeth Baker. His father was an honest but poor farmer who also owned cattle, and soon after Cullen was born, the family moved to Clarksville, Arkansas. After just a few years, they moved again, settling in Texas in 1839, eventually taking up residence in Davis County, where John Baker received a land grant of 640 acres. Despite the acreage, the family remained poor, and Cullen was teased at school for his homespun trousers and bare feet.
He was a slender and withdrawn youth, but he began to fight back. He obtained an old pistol and a rusty but workable rifle and practiced with both until he was very proficient. He took his first drink of whiskey at fifteen and began challenging anyone who annoyed him—boys and grown men alike—to go for their guns. It was not long before he spent most of his time in saloons, where his quick temper got him into several brawls.
He was generally described as a hard drinker, a braggart, quarrelsome, and mean-spirited. During one fight, a man named Morgan Culp hit him in the head with a tomahawk, knocking him unconscious. The incident seemed to calm his temper for a little while, but it would not last. Some weeks later, on January 11th, 1854, still wearing a head bandage, Baker married seventeen-year-old Martha Jane Petty and settled down to a quiet farming life.
But he grew tired of the routine and was back to his old ways just eight months later. One night, while out drinking, he became involved in a verbal altercation with a youth named Stallcup. As the discussion devolved, Baker became enraged, grabbed a whip, and beat the boy to near death. He was charged with the crime, and when he confronted one of the witnesses, Wesley Bailey, at his home, he shot him in both legs with a shotgun and left him lying in front of his house.
Bailey died a few days later. Before Baker could be arrested for the murder, he fled to Perry County, Arkansas, where he stayed with his mother’s brother, Thomas Young, for almost two years. While there, he stabbed a man named Wortham to death in an argument about horses in 1856, and fled back to Texas. But he soon returned to Arkansas when he learned he was still wanted to face murder charges in the killing of Bailey.
While he was gone, his wife gave birth to a baby girl, Louisa Jane, on May 24th, 1857. The following year, he briefly returned to Texas to retrieve his wife and daughter. His wife died on July 2nd, 1860, and Baker took their child to Sulphur County, Texas, leaving her with his in-laws. He never saw his daughter again.
In November 1861, he joined Company G of Morgan’s Regiment Cavalry to fight in the Confederate Army. In July 1862, he married for a second time, to Martha Foster, who was unaware he was wanted for murder. His name appears on the muster roll for September-October 1862, and he received pay through August 31st, but he was designated a deserter on January 10th, 1863. He then joined a group of guerrillas called the Independent Rangers, loosely associated with the Confederate Home Guard.
Their stated objective was to pursue and capture deserters from the Confederate Army. Instead, they took advantage of most of the men being away at war and committed atrocities of intimidation, rape, theft, and violence. Any man who had property was considered an enemy and was declared to be a Union man. The depredations in some areas became so bad that everyone who could left the region.
Shortly after Baker joined the Independent Rangers, they began an ongoing feud with another band called the Mountain Boomers, Union guerrillas. Both bands ranged through Arkansas, robbing, burning, and murdering indiscriminately. In November 1864, a small band of mostly old men, women, and children wished to flee from the turmoil and started west with their teams and valuables. As they crossed the Saline River in the Ouachita Mountains, they were overtaken by Cullen Baker and the Independent Rangers.
Allegedly, Baker and his men considered their attempt to flee as unpatriotic, but in reality, they needed little reason to harass them. When the settler band refused to return, Baker drew his pistol and shot and killed the band’s leader. He then assured the rest of the group that he would not kill anyone else if they agreed to return to their homes. But after the remaining settlers returned to Baker’s side of the river, he quickly let his rangers in, shooting and killing nine other men and stealing any valuables.
The event became known locally as the massacre of Saline. Afterward, the local citizens had had enough and began active preparations to annihilate the murderous gang. But when the ruffians got word of this, they fled with their booty and the many horses and mules they had stolen. When the war was over, one report tells that as he was making his way home, he came upon a group of travelers in Sevier County, Tennessee.
In the group was a Black woman whom he began to verbally harass and then shot and killed. He then settled down with his wife, Martha, near the Sulphur River area in southwestern Arkansas, where he became the manager of the Line Ferry. But it would be short-lived. Martha soon took ill and died on March 1st, 1866.
By many accounts, Baker was said to have deeply grieved her loss. But that did not stop him from proposing to her sixteen-year-old sister, Belle Foster, just two months later. Belle rejected his proposal and instead married a school teacher and political activist named Thomas Orr. Baker then began to harass Orr, trying to pick fights with the man, hitting him over the head with a tree limb, and going to his school to ridicule, curse, and threaten him in front of his students.
By this time, Reconstruction had begun in Arkansas and Texas, and Baker despised the idea. He and another outlaw named Lee Raymes organized a gang that operated out of the Sulphur River bottoms near Bright Star, Arkansas. Committing acts of robbery and murder, the gang was said to have killed at least thirty people, many of whom were outnumbered, ambushed, or shot in the back. Baker and his gang also traveled to Texas, where he killed John Sammons, who had previously killed a gang member, Seth Raymes, the brother of Lee Raymes.
He also killed Kirkman, a Reconstruction official, and a man named George Barron, who had previously taken part as a member of a posse hunting him. The gang continued their outlaw spree in Queen City, Texas, and Texarkana, Arkansas. On June 1st, 1867, Baker returned to Cass County, where he entered the Rowden General Store, picked up some items, and left without paying. The proprietor, John Rowden, then rode with a shotgun to Baker’s house and demanded payment.
Baker said he would come back and pay him, but on June 5th, he killed Rowden instead. Baker then fled back into Arkansas, where a Union sergeant confronted him when he boarded a ferry, recognizing him. Baker killed the Union officer, but a private was able to get away and reported the murder. After this, Baker was pursued relentlessly by Union forces.
On July 25th, 1867, he got into an argument with several Union soldiers near New Boston, Texas, which quickly escalated to violence. In the ensuing gunfight, Baker was shot in the arm, but he killed Army Private Albert Titus. This resulted in a $1,000 reward for his capture, dead or alive. In December 1867, he made his way to Bright Star, Arkansas, where he met up with several men who were planning a raid on the farm of Howell Smith, who had recently hired several freed slaves.
In the attack, one of Smith’s daughters was stabbed, another clubbed, and a Black man was shot and killed. But Smith resisted, and a shootout ensued, resulting in several of the raiders being wounded, including Baker, who was shot in the leg. On October 24th, 1868, Baker and his gang were reported to have been involved in the killings of Major Andrews, Lieutenant Willis, and an unnamed Black man in Little Rock, Arkansas. In the attack, Sheriff Standell was wounded.
By this time, Baker’s co-leader, Lee Raymes, had begun to doubt Baker’s leadership and felt that his actions would lead to the downfall of the entire gang. Raymes defied Baker, who backed down, and the gang broke up in December 1868. All members except Dummy Kirby sided with Raymes. Baker and Kirby made their way to Bloomberg, Texas, to the house of Baker’s in-laws in January 1869.
It would be there that both men would die on January 6th, 1869. Exactly how they were killed is unknown. One version says that his father-in-law and friends laced a bottle of whiskey and some food with strychnine, and both men died from poisoning. Afterward, their bodies were riddled with bullets.
Another version says that Thomas Orr, with whom Baker had long feuded, led a small band of men who ambushed Baker and Kirby at the Foster home, shooting and killing them. After the men were killed, their bodies were dragged through the town of Bloomberg and then taken to the U. S. Army outpost near Jefferson, where they were placed on public display.
Thomas Orr was said to have collected some of the reward money offered for Baker. Baker was buried in the Oakwood Cemetery in Jefferson, Texas. Though he was a deserter from Morgan’s squadron, the Confederate Cavalry unit is shown on his grave marker. Afterward, some romanticized him for his defense of Southern honor, but his record shows he was a ruthless killer who killed anyone who angered him, regardless of their loyalties.
He is estimated to have killed between fifty and sixty people, and authorities and historians alike rank him among the most ruthless killers who ever lived.
