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Born in Oldenburg Province in Northwestern Germany in [[1844]], Baars was the son of a prosperous lumberman and farmer. His father had intended for him to become heir to a landed fortune, but changed his plans when Kaiser William and Otto von Bismarck began formation of a large conscript army. To help his son avoid service in the army, the elder Baars purchased a military substitute for the boy, and arranged for Henry to take a small partnership with Carl Epping & Sons of London, a British timber trading company. In [[1860]], the firm sent Henry to their office in Savannah, Georgia.
Baars had barely arrived and begun his business career when the [[Civil War]] erupted. He enlisted in the [[Confederate]] Savannah Guards, was wounded twice in battle, and captured as a prisoner of war at Sailor's Creek in 1865. Returning to Georgia, he befriended an eight-year-old girl named [[Mary Ellison Baars|Mary Ellison Dunwody]], who was handing out small Confederate flags made by her mother.<ref name="seriousbusiness">"Baars Meant Serious Business With City's Early Development." ''Pensacola News'', March 7-11, 1983.</ref> They were married in [[1871]]; he was 26, she was 16. He had managed to reopen the Epping office after the war, and in [[1871]] Baars elected to move to Pensacola, where prospects for lumbering and the timber trade seemed far better. Shortly thereafter Baars ended his association with the Epping company and began his own firm.
==In Pensacola==