Lafayette C. Baker

Lafayette C. Baker was a Union intelligence officer and investigator during the American Civil War. Working for the War Department, he built a network of detectives and informants that pursued spies, smugglers, deserters and suspected Confederate agents.

After Abraham Lincoln’s assassination Baker’s organisation took part in the hunt for John Wilkes Booth and the conspirators. His methods, political manoeuvring and claims about secret evidence made him a controversial figure, and his later memoirs have to be used with caution.

John Jakes’ On Secret Service uses Lafayette C. Baker as one of the Union intelligence figures through whom the novel traces the improvised growth of federal wartime espionage. His organisation belongs to the world of detectives, informants, prisons and covert networks surrounding the fictional agents, and Baker remains relevant as the story moves towards the pursuit of John Wilkes Booth and the aftermath of Lincoln’s assassination. His presence ties the fictional spy plot to the real machinery of Union intelligence.