From Crawfordsville: Athens of Indiana by Karen Bazzani Zach p 86
One of Dr. and Mrs. Canby's seven children, Edward R. S. Canby, was another of Montgomery County's Generals. Edward attended Wabash College for awhile, then entered West Point. After graduating there in 1839, he served in the Mexican war. Again, that experience landed him a commission in the Civil War and it wasn't long after its onset that Edward Canby was made major general of volunteers. He continued to serve in the army after the war. While negotiating with the Modoc Indians on April 12, 1873, he was treacherously murdered by Captain Jack, a renegade leader of that tribe. The old Crawfordsville High School, the present-day Athena Sport and Fitness Center, is on the site of the old Canby home.
Source: Sons of Union Veterans Of The Civil War
Birth: November 9, 1817,
Death: April 11, 1873, Siskiyou County, California
Burial: Crown Hill Cemetery, 700 West 38th Street,
Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana
19th Infantry (Kentucky)
Graduated USMA 7/1/1839. 3/31/1862 Commissioned into US Vol.Gen. Staff. In Siskiyou county, CA he was killed by Modoc Indians while meeting to discuss a peace treaty.
Edward R. S. Canby, United States Army officer, son of Israel T. and Elizabeth (Piatt) Canby, was born at Piatt's Landing, Kentucky, on November 9, 1817. His father, a country doctor, later moved his family to Indiana. Canby enrolled in Wabash College and was appointed in 1835 to the United States Military Academy; he graduated thirtieth of thirty-one in the class of 1839. He married Louisa Hawkins of Crawfordsville, Indiana, on August 1 of that year. Lieutenant Canby served in the South, notably in the Second Seminole War in Florida (1839-42). During the Mexican War he earned two brevets in the campaign of Gen. Winfield Scott against Mexico City. Between 1848 and 1855 Major Canby held staff posts on the West Coast and in Washington, D.C. He was ordered to the Tenth Infantry Regiment in the Trans-Mississippi and later took part in the Mormon Expedition (1857-58) under Col. Albert Sidney Johnston. Soon after the Civil War began, Canby was named colonel of the Nineteenth Infantry at Fort Defiance, New Mexico Territory. In a series of battles (Valverde on February 21, 1862, and Apache Canyon and Glorieta on March 27 and 28), Canby's troops blunted a Confederate invasion led by Gen. Henry H. Sibley,qv who turned back into Texas. Canby's actions prevented Confederate expansion from Texas into the greater Southwest. After staff duties in Washington, D.C., from January 1863 through May 1864, Canby, as newly promoted major general of volunteers, took command of the Military Division of West Mississippi. He was wounded by guerrillas at White River, Arkansas, on November 6, 1864, but recovered and led the land campaign to capture Mobile, Alabama (March through April 1865), in cooperation with Gen. Gordon Grangerqv and Adm. David G. Farragut. Canby received the surrender of Confederates under Gen. Richard Taylor on May 4, 1865, and that of the Trans- Mississippi forces of Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith on May 26. The army was reorganized in July 1866, and Canby ranked ninth of only ten regular brigadier generals. His command included several states on the Gulf of Mexico, but Gen. Philip H. Sheridan reduced Canby's department to Louisiana. Sheridan supervised Texas through subordinate officers, Gen. Charles Griffin and Gen. Joseph J. Reynolds. All three of these officers were strong Republicans. After devoting Reconstruction time to Louisiana and the Carolinas, Canby replaced Reynolds in the Fifth Military District, where he served from November 1868 to March 1869. As an independent in politics, Canby was recognized during Reconstruction as one of the most fair-minded army officers in the South. His main accomplishment in Texas was supervising the process that led to the ratification of the Constitution of 1869. New southern state constitutions giving blacks the right to vote were required under the congressional Reconstruction Acts of 1867. Canby saw to it that the convention records were preserved and published. He removed few civilian officials, and his political appointments were judicious. He carefully protected the rights of freedmen without suppressing Democrats. In March 1869 President U. S. Grant reinstated Reynolds as commander in Texas. Reynolds had been removed by President Andrew Johnson, who thought he was partisan. Grant reassigned him, however, and ordered Canby to the Department of the Columbia, in the Pacific Northwest. There the Modoc Indians, based in an area known as the Lava Beds in California, were attacking settlers in California and Oregon. On April 11, 1873, Canby went unarmed to a parley and was killed when set upon by Modoc negotiators, including their leader, Captain Jack. Canby was the only regular army general killed in the Trans-Mississippi Indian wars.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Martin Hardwick Hall, Sibley's New Mexico Campaign (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1960).
Max L. Heyman, Jr., Prudent Soldier: A Biography of Major General E. R. S. Canby (Glendale, California: Clark, 1959).
William L. Richter, The Army in Texas during Reconstruction, 1865-1870 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1987).
James E. Sefton, The United States Army and Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967).
Joseph G. Dawson III History of Montgomery County, Indiana (Indianapolis: AW Bowen, 1913) p 1053
On the 4th day of May 1865, General Dick Taylor surrendered to General Canby all the remaining rebel forces east of the Mississippi. A force sufficient to insure an easy triumph over the enemy under Kirby Smith, west of the Mississippi, was immediately put in motion for Texas, and Major-General Sheridan designated for it's immediate command; but on the 26th day of May, and before they reached their final destination, General Kirby Smith surrendered his his entire command to Major-General Canby.
1867 Sep 13, Gen. E.R.S. Canby ordered South Carolina courts to impanel blacks as jurors.
(MC, 9/13/01)( www.tsha.utexas.edu)
Papers of Edward Canby
118.
Canby, Edward Richard Sprigg, 1819-1873.
Papers, 1837-1873. A\C214. .33 cu. ft.
Miscellaneous papers, 1844, 1862. C\C. 2 items.
Soldier. Papers primarily relating to the career and death of General E.R.S. Canby, with some material pertaining to other members of the Canby family and members of the allied Hawkins and Speed families.
Included are military papers of Gen. Canby, including orders and correspondence, 1853-1869; correspondence, 1850-1863, of Louisa Hawkins Canby (Mrs. E.R.S. Canby), including some letters to Gen. Canby; and newspaper clippings, 1873, concerning the murder of Canby by Modoc Indians, his funeral, and army career.
Louisa Canby's correspondence primarily discusses family and local news. Correspondents include her sisters Miriam Hawkins Speed (Mrs. John James Speed), Margaret Hawkins Speed (Mrs. Thomas Spencer Speed) and Fannie Hawkins, and her brother John P. Hawkins. Correspondence of John P. Hawkins concerns his attempt to assemble newspaper clippings about his brother-in-law, Gen. Canby.
Miscellaneous papers include a 14 February 1844 letter from Canby to Marsena Patrick insisting his friend and his family visit he and his wife; and printed copy of General Orders No. 11, 24 February 1862, from Fort Craig, New Mexico, regarding a memorial service for comrades killed in the Battle of Valverde, and paying tribute to those Union forces who participated in the action.
Source: http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/gnl/lonemem.htm
A monument has been erected to General Edward Richard Sprigg Canby at the spot where he fell, in the lava beds of Northern California, when he was treacherously murdered by Modoc Indian chiefs. From his boyhood home in Crawfordsville, Indiana, young Canby went to West Point. At Crawfordsville to his father, Dr. Israel T. Canby, was receiver of the land office for many years. For a time in San Francisco's early days, Major Canby was stationed on the Pacific Coast and was much loved by all who knew him at Monterey, at Benicia, and at San Francisco. After his promotion for gallant conduct during the War with Mexico, he served as Assistant Adjutant General of the Pacific Division from February 27, 1849 to February 22, 1851. He served through the Civil War. In 1870, when he was Brigadier General of the United States Army, he consented to take command of the Department of the Columbia, a difficult post on account of Indian disturbances. While holding a peace conference in the vicinity of the Modoc lava beds, on April 11, 1873, he was murdered. General Canby's graves is in Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis; but the monument erected to his memory by the Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West in Modoc County, California, is a cherished shrine.
Hundreds each year to see that lonely spot called Canby's Cross, where the peace commissioners went unarmed to meet the Modoc braves, and where Richard Canby sacrificed his life in his heroic endeavor to bring about peace between red men and the white. He did not altogether fail, though he lost his life in his courageous effort to accomplish his mission without bloodshed.
1873 Captain Jack and three other Modoc Indians, hanged in Oregon by the US Army for the murder of General Edward Canby
The United States military hangs four Indians found guilty of murdering the Civil War hero, General Edward Canby, during the Modoc War in Oregon. Canby was the highest ranking military official-and the only general-ever killed by Indians. As with most of the American military conflicts with Indians, the Modoc war began with a struggle over land. A treaty signed in 1864 had forced a band of Modoc Indians under the leadership of Chief Keintpoos-known to Americans as Captain Jack-to move to a reservation in southeastern Oregon dominated by Klamath Indians, who viewed the Modoc as unwelcome intruders on their traditional lands. Frustrated with the ill-treatment they received at the hands of the Klamath, Captain Jack and his followers abandoned the reservation in 1870 and returned to their former territory and traditional hunter-gatherer life.
But during their six-year absence, white settlers had flooded into the Modoc's former territory. Despite Captain Jack's repeated assurances that his people wanted only peace, many feared the Indians. In 1872, bowing to public pressure, the US dispatched military forces to remove the Modoc and force them back onto the reservation. When some of the more hotheaded Modoc resisted, war broke out; and the Modoc fled to a stronghold among the Lava Beds south of Tule Lake, where they succeeded in holding off US forces for almost half a year.
During the early months of the Modoc War, Captain Jack had strongly opposed armed resistance and continuously searched for a peaceful solution. But under pressure from more aggressive Modoc who were challenging his leadership, he made the fatal error of agreeing to a plan to kill the leader of the American forces, General Edward Canby. On April 11, 1873, Canby and two other men entered the Modoc stronghold under a flag of truce, hoping to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict. Captain Jack murdered Canby, and other Modoc killed one of his companions. The third man escaped to give a detailed report of the Modoc's treachery.
Outraged by the murder of an honored Civil War hero, Americans demanded swift retribution. The Army stepped up its attacks on the Modoc, and by early June Captain Jack and his followers had been captured. After a military trial at Fort Klamath, Oregon, Captain Jack and three other Modoc leaders were found guilty of murder and hanged. As a result of the Modoc War and the murder of Canby, the US began to take a much more aggressive approach to dealing with Indian problems throughout the nation.
Columbia Encyclopedia
Canby, Edward Richard Sprigg, 1817-1873, Union general in the Civil War, b. Kentucky, grad. West Point, 1839. He fought in the Seminole War and in the Mexican War. In the Civil War, Canby commanded the Dept. of New Mexico, where he thoroughly repelled the Confederate invasion (1862). He was made a brigadier general of volunteers in Mar., 1862, and was on special duty in the War Dept. in Washington from Jan., 1863, to Mar., 1864, except for four months as the commander of New York City during the draft riots of 1863. Canby was promoted to major general in May, 1864, and assigned to command the Military Division of West Mississippi. He captured Mobile in Apr., 1865, and in May received the surrender of the last Confederate armies. After the war Canby held various commands in the South until 1870, when he was sent to the Dept. of the Columbia on the Pacific coast. He was killed during a peace conference with the Modoc.