Edward Richard Sprigg Canby (9 November 1817 – 11 April 1873) was a Major-General of the US Army during the American Civil War and the Plains Indian Wars. Canby's murder at the hands of the Modoc tribe in 1873 led to President Ulysses S. Grant dispatching a large army to quell the escaped Indians in the "Modoc War". He was the only American general to be killed by Native Americans.
Biography[]
Edward Canby was born on 9 November 1817 at Piatt's Landing, Kentucky, and he graduated from West Point in 1839. Canby became a Lieutenant in the US Army, and he served in the Second Seminole War and Mexican-American War. After storming the Belen Gates of Mexico City, he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and he was given command of Fort Defiance in New Mexico at the start of the American Civil War in 1861. On 26–28 March 1862, he forced the Confederate States Army to retreat from New Mexico into Texas in "the Gettysburg of the West", and on 17 July 1863 he was sent to serve as commandant of New York City in the aftermath of the draft riots. In May 1864, he was promoted to Major-General and sent to replace Nathaniel P. Banks as commander in Louisiana, and he led the Military Division of Western Mississippi, capturing Fort Blakely (near Mobile, Alabama) on 2–9 April 1865 and accepting the surrenders of Confederate generals Richard Taylor and Edmund Kirby Smith on 4 and 26 May, respectively.
Modoc War[]
Canby's murder by the Modoc
While President Ulysses S. Grant (the former commander-in-chief of the Union forces during the Civil War) did not see Canby as a good soldier - he was too cautious - Grant did see a great administrator inside of the general. In August 1872, Canby was sent to deal with the Modoc tribe in California after they began causing trouble, and he fought against them in the Modoc War. On 11 April 1873, Canby went unarmed to a parley with the Modoc in hopes of resolving their differences peacefully, and the Modoc leader Captain Jack asked him to give the Modoc a home within the USA. When Canby said that he did not have the authority to do so, Captain Jack shot him in the back of the head with a pistol, killing him. Captain Jack had intended to kill him all along, believing that the US Army would retreat if their general was killed. However, his death led to federal troops being sent to crush the Modoc, and Captain Jack would be hanged as a war criminal.
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