George Wythe Baylor (August 24, 1832 – March 24, 1916) was a Confederate cavalry officer from Texas, and a veteran of many battles of the American Civil War.

After the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted in the Confederate States Army, and was elected first lieutenant, 2nd Texas Mounted Rifles.

He witnessed the death of General Johnston at Shiloh, and fought in many engagements of the Red River campaign in Louisiana in 1864.

He was promoted to major, and later colonel, by President Davis, although his promised regiment of Texas Rangers was never raised owing to the collapse of the Confederacy in 1865.

He later retired to Guadalajara, Mexico, and lived there for some years, but was compelled to return to the United States in 1913 due to the Mexican Revolution.

George Wythe Baylor was born at Fort Gibson, in the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, on August 24, 1832.

His father dying when he was four years old, his mother, then living on Second Creek, Mississippi, near Natchez, went to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, then to Little Rock, and finally to Fort Gibson again.

[7]He went from school to San Antonio, and, lured by the gold rush, left there in March 1854 for California, five months being required to make the trip.

[7] He remained in California five years, and, although brought out by the Democratic party in 1859 for the Legislature, he preferred to come back to Texas.

[8] In the same year, Baylor's profession was listed on the Parker county tax records and the United States census as "Indian killer".

[7] The rangers also practiced scalping, and, as Baylor later explained, for the benefit of his "eastern friends", this was to manipulate the Comanches' fear of losing their scalps—without which they could not hope to enjoy the best pleasures of their afterlife.

[11] It went to El Paso, there became Pyron's regiment and enlisted more men and companies, and then went to Louisiana under General Thomas Green.

[11] Shortly after his arrival in El Paso the first regiment of the Union Army Baylor was called upon to fight was that to which his father had been attached during his lifetime, the 7th Infantry, and he and his brother had relatives and a large number of friends in its ranks.

[8][7] After General Johnston's death Jefferson Davis promoted Baylor to the rank of major, with authority to raise a battalion of Texas rangers for service in the Confederate cause.

[8][11] Baylor was present at the capture of the United States regulars near Fort Fillmore in New Mexico, and in the following fights in the Louisiana Red River campaign: Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, Monett's Ferry, Marksville, Mansura and Yellow Bayou.

[11] Since Colonel Walter P. Lane was wounded at Mansfield, Baylor took command of the brigade until the close of the Red River campaign.

[17][18] While the promised regiment of Texas rangers was never raised, because of the coming of the close of the Civil War, Colonel Baylor retained his rank, and it was a dispute over this that led him to kill General John A. Wharton during a heated quarrel on April 6, 1865,[8] at the headquarters of General John B. Magruder in the Fannin Hotel in Galveston.

[8] By his own account, Baylor was never wounded or made prisoner, but was badly scared by being hit on the nose at Shiloh on April 6, 1862, and had a horse shot under him at Yellow Bayou, Louisiana, in 1864.

[19][8] Baylor left San Antonio on August 2, 1879, with his wife, two young daughters, and sister-in-law, two fully laden wagons, a piano, and a game cock with four hens.

[8] The citizens of El Paso del Norte (now Juarez) organized and asked Baylor and his Rangers to join their party to go in pursuit of Victorio.

[8][5] With 20 rangers under his command, Baylor joined Colonel Joaquin Terrazas, described by the El Paso Herald as "an old Indian fighter", in Chihuahua.