Biography
Baxter was born in Rutherford County, North Carolina. He sought and obtained an appointment as a cadet to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Baxter's father strongly opposed his appointment, and Baxter resigned his appointment.
Baxter ran a successful mercantile business in Rutherford County with his brother-in-law Spenser Eaves.
Read more about this topic: Elisha Baxter
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“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
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