Edward Canby
Edward Richard Sprigg Canby 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. 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.
Early life
Canby was born in Piatt's Landing, Kentucky, to Israel T. and Elizabeth Canby. He attended Wabash College, and transferred to the United States Military Academy, from which he graduated in 1839. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Infantry and served as the regimental adjutant.Although he was often referred to as Edward Canby, a biographer has suggested that he was known as "Richard" during childhood and to some friends for most of his life. He was called "Sprigg" by fellow cadets at West Point, but during most of his career, he was generally referred to as E.R.S. Canby, sometimes signing his name "Ed. R.S. Canby."
Marriage and family
He married Louisa Hawkins Canby at Crawfordsville, Indiana, August 1, 1839. She came from a family of three sisters and a brother, with whom she remained close. The Canbys had one child, a daughter, who did not survive childhood.Early military career
During his early career, Canby served in the Second Seminole War in Florida and saw combat during the Mexican–American War, where he received three brevet promotions, including to major for Contreras and Churubusco, and lieutenant colonel for Belén Gates. He also served at various posts, including Upstate New York and in the adjutant general's office in California from 1849 until 1851, covering the period of the territory's transition to statehood.Against his wishes, he was assigned to what was supposed to be the civilian post of custodian of the California Archives from March 1850 until he left California in April 1851. The Archives included records of Spanish and Mexican governments in California, as well as Mission records and land titles. Evidently, Canby had some knowledge of the Spanish language, which was extremely useful as the government was trying to unravel land titles. The Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Kentucky holds what appears to be a document written in Canby's hand in Spanish, in which he identifies himself as "Edwardo Ricardo S. Canby."
Canby served in Wyoming and Utah, then both part of the Utah Territory, during the Utah War. During this period, he served on the panel of judges for the court martial of Captain Henry Hopkins Sibley. Sibley was acquitted. Subsequently, Canby wrote an endorsement for a teepee-like army tent which Sibley adapted from the American Indian style.
Both officers were later assigned to New Mexico, where in 1860 Canby coordinated a campaign against the Navajo, commanding Sibley in a futile attempt to capture and punish Navajo for "depredations" against the livestock of settlers. The campaign ended in frustration, with Canby and Sibley rarely sighting Navajo raiders. Usually they saw the Navajo at a distance and never got close to them.
Civil War
At the start of the Civil War, Canby commanded Fort Defiance, New Mexico Territory. He was promoted to colonel of the 19th U.S. Infantry on May 14, 1861, and the following month commanded the Department of New Mexico. His former assistant Sibley resigned to join the Confederate Army, becoming a Brigadier General. Sibley's Army of New Mexico defeated Canby and his troops in February 1862 at the Battle of Valverde. Canby eventually forced the Confederates to retreat to Texas after the Union's strategic victory at the Battle of Glorieta Pass.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 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.
In the spring of 1865, Canby commanded the Union forces assigned to conduct the campaign against Mobile, Alabama. 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 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.
Central Lunatic Asylum for Colored Insane
In April 1869, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton appointed General Canby as military governor of Virginia. Soon after Canby arrived in Richmond, he confiscated each of the medical facilities in the city and converted them for use by the Union Army. In the next several months, Canby was made aware of the critical medical and economic plight of thousands of formerly enslaved blacks in the state uprooted by the Civil War. Canby had to decide how to provide blacks access to health and mental health services without violating the racial pecking order that existed in the South.One area in dispute was whether blacks would be allowed admission to the state's existing mental asylums at Williamsburg and Staunton. Racial integration of these two asylums had been debated in the legislature and the psychiatric community for over a decade. Dr. John Galt, superintendent of Eastern Lunatic Asylum at Williamsburg believed that free blacks and whites could be treated medically in the same facility as he had demonstrated. However, Dr. Francis Stribling, superintendent of Western Lunatic Asylum at Staunton refused to admit either free or enslaved blacks to his institution.
Following the death of Galt, Stribling became chair of an asylum planning committee that advised Canby and the Freedman's Bureau on a permanent admission policy for the black population. Stribling proposed that Virginia should construct a separate asylum for the admission and treatment of blacks with lunacy. Canby accepted his recommendation and included it as the basis of his military order number 136, published in December 1869. Canby's order required continued utilization of a rented annex at Howard's Grove Hospital as the temporary psychiatric hospital for blacks, until the state of Virginia could decide whether to maintain and expand it or construct a new facility.
In June 1870, the Virginia legislature accepted ownership of the Central Lunatic Asylum for Colored Insane, the first standalone facility in the United States. It remained located at the Howard's Grove site until 1885, when a new facility was constructed in Dinwiddie County some 40 miles south of Richmond, and renamed Central State Hospital. Canby should be credited with creating the first racially segregated mental hospital in the US for African Americans. The hospital remained segregated by race until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.