He entered the Confederate army "while quite a youth" with William McWillie Williamson's cadets, later joining Walter L. Mann's Texas Cavalry Regiment.

[4] There is not an exact match for his name on the National Park Service's Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System although it is possible he was misrecorded with the surname Barnes.

He studied law under James W. Throckmorton and Thomas Jefferson Brown, the former governor and future chief justice of Texas, respectively.

Prior to his appointment as Secretary of State by John Ireland in 1883, Baines was the publisher,[6] editor, and proprietor of the McKinney Advocate.

[4] Both Baines and his wife are buried together at Der Stadt Friedhof, on the first row, near the National Museum of the Pacific War.