After the war he operated with a gang he organized with outlaw Lee Rames in the late 1860s, operating out of the Sulphur River bottoms near Bright Star, Arkansas, committing acts of robbery and murder. Authorities credit him officially with killing at least 30 people, though many of these no doubt were killed by his men. Unlike the romanticized versions of his exploits, the reality was that he killed most of them from ambush or in the back, and many with a shotgun, and he almost always had his victims outnumbered. Like many of the ex-Confederates who operated after the war, Baker was regarded as a hero by some because he opposed the Federal occupation, but his record shows a merciless killer who killed anyone who angered him, regardless of their loyalties.