United States Army - Wounded at White River, AR - NEW

Item CDV-11534

Description

 
Edward Richard Sprigg Canby (November 9, 1817 – April 11, 1873) was a career United States Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War. He served as a military governor after the war.
 
In 1861–1862, Canby commanded the Department of New Mexico, defeating the Confederate General Henry Hopkins Sibley at the Battle of Glorieta Pass, forcing him to retreat to Texas. 
 
Immediately following this battle, Canby was promoted to brigadier general on March 31, 1862. Recombining the forces he had earlier divided, Canby set off in pursuit of the retreating Confederate forces, but he soon gave up the chase and allowed them to reach Texas. Shortly after the failure of the Confederate invasion of northern New Mexico, Canby was relieved of his command by Gen. James H. Carleton and reassigned to the east.
 
Canby's achievement in New Mexico had largely been in his planning an overall defensive strategy. He and his opponent, Sibley, both had limited resources. Though Canby was a little better supplied, he saw that defending the entire territory from every possible attack would stretch his forces too thinly. Realizing that Sibley had to attack along a river, especially since New Mexico was in the middle of a long drought, Canby made the best use of his forces by defending against only two possible scenarios: an attack along the Rio Grande and an attack by way of the Pecos and Canadian rivers. He could easily shift the latter defensive force to protect Fort Union if the enemy attacked by way of the Rio Grande, which they did. Canby persuaded the governors of both New Mexico and Colorado to raise volunteer units to supplement regular Federal troops; the Colorado troops proved helpful at both Valverde and Glorieta. In spite of occasional superior soldiering by Confederate troops and junior commanders, Sibley's sluggishness and vacillation in executing a plan with high risk led to an almost inevitable Confederate collapse.
 
After a period of clerical duty, Canby was assigned as "commanding general of the city and harbor of New York City" on July 17, 1863. This assignment followed the New York Draft Riots, which caused about 120 deaths and extensive property damage. He served until November 9, reviving the draft, and overseeing a prisoner of war camp in New York Harbor. He then went to work in the office of the Secretary of War, unofficially describing himself in correspondence as an "Assistant Adjutant General." Looking back on Canby's record, a 20th-century adjutant general, Edward F. Witsell, described Canby's position as "similar to 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 his command at Simmesport, Louisiana. He next was assigned to the Midwest, where he commanded the Military Division of Western Mississippi. He was wounded in the upper thigh by a guerrilla while aboard the gunboat USS Cricket on the White River in Arkansas near Little Island on November 6, 1864. Canby commanded the Union forces assigned to conduct the campaign against Mobile, Alabama in the spring of 1865. This culminated in the Battle of Fort Blakeley, which led to the fall of Mobile on April 12, 1865. Canby accepted the surrender of the Confederate forces under General Richard Taylor in Citronelle, on May 4, 1865, and those under General Edmund Kirby Smith west of the Mississippi River on May 26, 1865.
 
Canby was generally regarded as a great administrator, but he was criticized as a soldier. Ulysses S. Grant thought him not aggressive enough. At one time, Grant sent Canby an order to "destroy [the enemy's] railroads, machine-shops, &c." Ten days later, Grant reprimanded him for requesting men and materials to build railroads. "I wrote... urging you to... destroy railroads, machine-shops, &c., not to build them", Grant said. Canby could be a destroyer but appeared to prefer the role of builder. If someone had a question about army regulations or Constitutional law affecting the military, Canby was the man to see. Grant came to appreciate this in peace time, once complaining vigorously when President Andrew Johnson proposed to assign Canby away from the capital where Grant considered him irreplaceable.
 
At the war's end, he took the surrender of Generals Richard Taylor and Edmund Kirby Smith.
 
As commander of the Pacific Northwest in 1873, he was assassinated by Chief Kintpuash during peace talks with the Modoc, who were refusing to move from their California homelands.
 
Source:  Wikipedia