PIATT-L Archives
Archiver > PIATT > 2004-01 > 1074478705
From:
Subject: [PIATT] Re: Elizabeth Piatt and Isreal Canby
Date: 18 Jan 2004 19:18:33 -0700
This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/Z.2ACBAEB/280.1
Message Board Post:
Thank you, David, for posting this extensive response in answer to this query to the PIATT-L list. Allow me to repost it here at Ancestry. The reason is that the original query was posted to the Piatt board at Ancestry. That board automatically forwards the query to the PIATT-L list. But to ensure that the original poster, in this case Rick, sees the response it should be posted to the Piatt board at Ancestry. The response, in turn, will be forwarded to the PIATT-L list and the information will be in the archives of Ancestry as well as PIATT-L. I'll post David's message below. Let me note that the Piatt Family Newsletter gives a variation in the birthplace of Dr Canby. PFN says says he was born in Upper Marlboro MD and is buried in Crawfordville IN. I do not know which is correct. And let me mention only one typo in the original posting. The birthdate of Frances Canby is 1849 rather than 1949.
*****
Rene (Reyneir) Pyatt 1650 Mother: Elizabeth SHEFFIELD
....Jacob (Jack?) PYATT and Mary Hull
.........John Piatt and Frances Van VliettWYCKOFF
..............Daniel Piatt 1745 Mother: Catherine SHERRED
...................Robert Piatt 1769 Mother: Nancy Jones
........................Elizabeth Piatt
Brothers, and sisters
........................Catherine Sherrad Piatt
........................Daniel Piatt 1801
........................John Piatt 1803
........................William Piatt 1811
........................Jacob Piatt, 1817
Elizabeth Piatt
Born c1799, Boone Co KY³
Married Israel T Canby, 1-12-1817, Boone Co KY³
Died
Buried
Father: Robert Piatt 1769 Mother: Nancy Jones
Dr.³ Israel T Canby
Born 1779 in Loudoun County, Virginia
Children
Edward Richard Sprigg Canby b. 9 Nov 1817, East Bend, Boone Co KY; d. 11 Apr
1873, Siskiyoo Co CA; m. c1839, Louisa HAWKINS³
Charles G. Canby, b. 1823, Madison, Jefferson Co IN³
Beulah Canby, b. 1826, Madison, Jefferson Co IN³
Catherine P. Canby, b. 1828, Madison, Jefferson Co IN³
Mary P. Canby b. 1830, Madison, Jefferson Co IN³
John J. Canby, b. 1839, Madison, Jefferson Co IN³
Frances Canby, b. 1949, East Bend, Boone Co KY³
Note:
In 1816, Israel married Elizabeth Piatt, whose father Robert Piatt owned
equally extensive acreage on the Ohio River just above the Sprigg lands.
>From this marriage a son was born. At Piatt's Landing, on November 9, 1817,
Edward Richard Sprigg Canby was born. Within a year, his father, Israel,
sold the Sprigg estate which had been willed to him by his Aunt. He then
moved his family further down the Ohio River to Madison, Indiana.
Israel engaged in pursuits other than his medical practice. There is some
doubt wether or not he continued his practice after he began his movement
west. In 1818 and 1823, he purchased eleven-thousand acres of land in
Illinois for Eighteen-thousand dollars. He also had acquired canals in
Indiana and was a merchant of goods, purchased in Baltimore, and sold as if
he was a one-man Chamber of Commerce in Madison, Indiana.
In the 1821-22 session of the Indiana State Assembly, Israel represented
Jefferson County in the lower house. He became one of eight Trustees listed
in the Act to Incorporate Madison, Indiana. Israel was also appointed to the
Platform and State Central Committees for the Indiana Convention for Andrew
Jackson. In 1826, Israel was elected to a three year term as a State
Senator. On July 4, 1828, he resigned his seat in the Senate to run for
Governor, announcing his candidacy only one month before the election. He
lost his bid by only three-thousand votes. The new Governor was James Brown
Ray. Dr. Israel T. Canby was a very prominent Hoosier Democrat, and was
treated accordingly.
Israel and Elizabeth's son, Edward Richard Sprigg Canby, became a West Point
graduate and a Major General in the United States Army. He was involved in
numerous military affairs, including the Civil War. According to "The
Bicentennial Almanac", by Calvin D. Linton, " Mobile, Alabama was the only
major city still in Confederate hands. On April 12, 1865, it was taken
without a fight by troops under Union General Edward R. S. Canby". On May 4,
1865, the book states that, "General Edward R. S. Canby takes the surrender
of the Confederate Department of Alabama, Mississippi and Eastern Louisiana
from General Richard Taylor of Cotronelle, Alabama".
There is a three-hundred and eighty-eight page book written exclusively
about General Edward Richard Sprigg Canby and his life in the military. It
is called, "The Prudent Soldier, A Biography of Major General E. R. S.
Canby, 1817 - 1873", by Max Heyman, Jr. The book was published by the Arthur
Clark Company, Glendale, California, in 1959. In order to have relevant
facts and a family keepsake, In 1980, I purchased a copy of this book from
an available supply.
The Major General, Edward Richard Sprigg Canby was killed by Keintpoos, or
"Captain Jack", Chief of the Modoc Indians. The killing took place in the
Lava Bed country of Northern California, while the General was engaged in
peace talks with the Modoc tribe. The event took place on April 11, 1873,
when "Captain Jack' raised to his feet and shot the general below the left
eye, breaking his jaw. As the General staggered to his feet to run, a rifle
from another Modoc, Ellen's Man, struck him down. General Sherman, under
instructions from the President of the United States, ordered Canby's
subordinate, Colonel Gillem, "to make the attack so strong that their fate
may be commensurate with the crime.
CANBY, EDWARD RICHARD SPRIGG (1817-1873).² 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 Warqv 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.qv
Soon after the Civil Warqv began, Canby was named colonel of the Nineteenth
Infantry at Fort Defiance, New Mexico Territory. In a series of battles
(Valverdeqv on February 21, 1862, and Apache Canyon and Glorietaqv 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 Smithqv
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. Sheridanqv reduced Canby's department to
Louisiana. Sheridan supervised Texas through subordinate officers, Gen.
Charles Griffin and Gen. Joseph J. Reynolds.qqv All three of these officers
were strong Republicans. After devoting Reconstructionqv time to Louisiana
and the Carolinas, Canby replaced Reynolds in the Fifth Military District,qv
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.qv 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
Source:
²http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/CC/fca39.html
³Piatt Family Newsletter
David C. Piatt
Shelby Twp MI
This thread: