ColorizedPast
Corporal
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2016
- Location
- Hangzhou, China (Wisconsin, USA)
Major General Edward Richard Sprigg Canby (USV)
Edward Richard Sprigg Canby was born in Piatt’s Landing, Kentucky on 9 November 1817. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1839 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Infantry. He is often referred to as Edward Canby, though he may have been called by Richard in his childhood, Sprigg by fellow cadets at West Point, and during most of his career he was referred to as E. R. S. Canby.
He served in the Second Seminole War in Florida and received three brevet promotions during the Mexican-American War. After the war, he served in upstate New York and in the adjutant general’s office in California from 1849 until 1851 during the territory’s transition to statehood.
He served in Wyoming and Utah during the Utah War, serving on the court martial of Captain Henry Hopkins Sibley. Sibley was acquitted, and Canby wrote an endorsement for the army tent Sibley had adapted from the Native American teepee. Both were later assigned to New Mexico, where Canby, in 1860, coordinated a campaign against the Navajo.
At the start of the Civil War, Canby commanded Fort Defiance in New Mexico Territory. He was promoted to colonel of the 19th U.S. Infantry on 14 May 1861 and to command of the Department of New Mexico in June. Sibley joined the Confederate Army as a brigadier general. Sibley’s Army of New Mexico defeated Canby at the Battle of Valverde in February 1862, but Canby forced Sibley back into Texas following the strategic Union victory at Glorieta Pass.
Canby was promoted to brigadier general on 31 March 1862. He was relieved of his command by James H. Carleton and reassigned in the east. He served as commanding general of the city and harbor of New York City during the latter half of 1863. He then worked in a position described as “similar that of an Assistant to the Secretary of the Army”.
In May 1864, Canby was promoted to major general and relieved Nathaniel P. Banks of command in Louisiana. He then took command of the Military Division of Western Mississippi. He was wounded in the upper thigh by a guerrilla on the White River in Arkansas on 6 November 1864. Canby commanded the Union campaign against Mobile, Alabama in the spring of 1865. Mobile fell on 12 April. Canby accepted the surrender of Confederate forces under Richard Taylor in Citronelle on 4 May, and those under Edmund Kirby Smith west of the Mississippi River on 26 May.
In August 1872, Canby was posted to command the Pacific Northwest. He ran into trouble with the Modoc tribe which had been forced out of Northern California to live on a reservation with their traditional enemies, the Klamath tribe. They pleaded to return to California and left the reservation illegally after the U.S. refused. The Modoc War broke out in 1872.
Canby received conflicting orders from Washington about whether to make peace or war on the Modoc. Canby was assigned to a peace commission but rumors that the governor of Oregon would hang nine Modoc as soon as they surrendered scuttled talks. On 11 April 1873, Canby went to another parley unarmed. Modoc warriors and two members of Canby’s party were secretly armed. Captain Jack, the Modoc leader, insisted on being able to ask Canby to “give us a home in our country”. When Canby said he didn’t have the authority to make such a promise, Captain Jack attacked and killed Canby. Reverend Eleazar Thomas was also killed. Canby was the only general to be killed during the Indian Wars.
(Note: I completed this back in September 2017 and it got lost in the shuffle!)