Henry Baxter
Henry Baxter was born in Sidney
Plains, Delaware County, New York, on September 8, 1821. At the age of ten he
moved with his father to the village of Jonesville in Michigan. In 1849 Baxter
crossed the plains to California, remaining until 1852, when he returned to
Jonesville to engage in the milling business. Soon after the beginning of the
Civil War he was elected captain of a local company which was mustered in as
Company C of the 7th Michigan Infantry. He became its lieutenant colonel on July
1, 1862, and was appointed brigadier general of volunteers on March 12, 1863. In
the course of the Peninsular campaign, Baxter was severely wounded in the
abdomen. After recovering, he fought at Fredericksburg in command of the
regiment in Howard's division of the II. Corps and led the assaulting boat party
which drove out Confederate skirmishers from the riverfront buildings to secure
the crossing. Here his left shoulder was shattered by a bullet, and he was again
invalided for some months. At Gettysburg, commanding a brigade in the I Corps,
he lost his entire staff and half his men. During U. S. Grant's Overland
campaign against Richmond in the spring of 1864, General Baxter commanded a
brigade of the V Corps. At the Wilderness a rifle ball passed through his leg
and killed his horse. On April 1, 1865, he was brevetted major general for
gallantry at the Wilderness and the battle of Five Forks. Mustered out in
August, 1865, he returned to Jonesville and served two years as register of
deeds. In 1869 President Grant appointed him minister resident to the Republic
of Honduras, a post he occupied until the vagaries of Central American politics
forced his retirement in 1872. Returning to Jonesville, he engaged in the lumber
business for a year until his death of pneumonia on December 30, 1873. He was
buried in Jonesville Cemetery. Burial: Sunset View Cemetery,
Jonesville, Hillsdale County
Michigan. Plot: Old Part, Avenue E, Lot 201
Reference: Generals in Blue. Lives of the Union Commanders by Ezra J. Warner. Louisiana State University Press. Baton Rouge.