Canby, Edward Richard Sprigg (1817-1873)

US soldier. He commanded the Union's Department of New Mexico and defeated a Confederate attempt to take California. As commander of the Department of the Gulf, he accepted the surrender of the last two Confederate field armies in May 1865.

He was born in Kentucky and graduated from West Point in 1839. He fought in the Seminole War and the Mexican War. As commander of the Military Division of Western Mississippi, he captured Mobile, Alabama. He went to Washington, DC, as the Assistant Adjutant General, and then commanded troops in New York City. Modoc Indians murdered Canby, who had been sent to negotiate peace with the tribe, in northern California.