Page:The Indian History of the Modoc War.djvu/231



In 1835 he was appointed cadet at the United States Mili- tary Academy and was graduated in the class of 1839. He numbered among his classmates Halleck, Stephens, Ord and other officers who distinguished themselves in the Civil War. He was commissioned second lieutenant and assigned to the Second Infantry, from October, 1839, to the end of the Florida War, in 1842. He served in the field as quartermaster and commissary of subsistance. He was then detailed to assist in removing the conquered Indians to the reserve set apart for them and afterwards known as the Indian Territory. He was on garrison and recruiting duty until 1846, when he \vas ap- pointed adjutant of his regiment and June, 1846, was promoted first lieutenant in the Mexican War. In the Mexican War Lieutenant Canby served under General Ryley and took part in the siege of Vera Cruz and was in the battle of Cerro Gardo Contreres and Churubusco. In the final capitulation of the City of Mexico he was w r ith the storming party that made the attack on the Belengate. For his service in this war he was brevetted major and lieutenant colonel, and in June, 1851, was promoted captain in the line, not wishing to relinquish his position as assistant adjutant general, with the rank of lieuten- ant colonel in the adjutant general's department, he did not accept the captaincy.

In 1855 he was made major of the Tenth U. S. Infantry, and with the regiment did frontier duty for three years. When the Utah trouble in 1858 directed the army to that territory he was ordered to Fort Bridger and his command there in- cluded portions of the Second Dragoon and Seventh and Tenth U. S. Infantry. This post was held by Major Canby until 1863, when he commanded the expedition against the Navajo Indians, and was at ort Fort Defiance, New Mexico, when the Civil War caused the resignation of many of the officers of the army. Major Canby was in 1861 made general of the Nineteenth Regiment and acting brigadier general of the U. S'. forces in New Mexico. He succeeded in driving the Confeder- ate troops under General Sibley from the Territory, after inflicting on the Confederate forces a loss of one-half of their men in killed and wounded and prisoners. On March 3ist,