Part two in a two-part series on the lives of Gens. St. John R. Liddell and E.R.S. Canby

The postwar years for Gens. Liddell and Canby were active, yet concluded violently and much too soon for both men.

Unfortunately for Liddell, the dispute between him and the Charles Jones family was rekindled when he returned to his Louisiana plantation.

Violence between friends and relations of the two men had occurred on a regular basis since the two became rivals in the early 1850s. In 1852, suspecting an attempt on his life, Liddell killed two men he believed were associated with Jones. He was arrested for murder, but was acquitted of the charges.

Evidently, this event fueled the fire of revenge for Jones. As a result, he and one of his sons boarded a river boat, where Liddell was having dinner with friends or business associates. The two Jones men opened fire, killing Liddell on the spot.

Later, while hiding out in the local sheriff’s house, Jones and his son were attacked by a local mob acting in support of Liddell. The group charged into the home and killed the two as revenge for the slain Liddell.

Edward Richard Sprigg Canby was born in Piatt’s Landing, Ky. in 1817. By 1839, he had graduated from the United States Military Academy, and unlike Liddell, made the military his lifelong occupation.

Following graduation, the Second Lieutenant embarked on an active stint, serving first in the Seminole War and then in the War with Mexico, which, in turn, honed the skills of numerous military officers, both Union and Confederate.

After his service in the Mexican War, Canby remained in the American West, where he served in California and in the Utah Territory, where he fought in the Utah War, which basically amounted to a tension-filled confrontation between the U.S. Army and Mormon settlers.

Just prior to the beginning of the American Civil War, Canby found himself in the New Mexico Territory, where he campaigned against the Navajo for their transgressions against American settlers who had begun to pour into the far west.

Canby’s familiarity with the American West was most likely a deciding factor in his early assignment in the region, just as the Civil War ruptured the young nation. His position brought him into immediate conflict with his former officer colleague H.H. Sibley, who left the Union Army for the Confederacy.

After forcing the Confederate forces in the region to pull back into Texas from the New Mexico Territory, Canby received a change of duty that took him first to New York and then to the South, where he was ordered to conduct the Union movement against Mobile.

The assault on the port city was a success by the spring of 1865, and Canby accepted the surrender of Confederate forces in the region by May 1865.

After the war, Canby participated in the military arm of Reconstruction. He served in Washington, D.C., the Carolinas and in Texas, administering Reconstruction policy. Serving in that capacity, he gained a reputation for being firm, yet fair in his enforcement of Federal policy.

His attention to detail concerning law and to its effective enforcement, at least in part, led to his posting in the American Northwest, where he had to deal with sour relations between the U.S. government and the Modoc Indian tribe.

Canby lost his life in an incident in 1873 in which he was attempting to reconcile the two sides; U.S. and Modoc. He was part of a peace commission that had been attempting to meet with Modoc leaders to enforce treaty regulations. In a meeting between the two sides, Canby was killed by a contingent of Modoc led by Captain Jack.

The Rev. Eleazar Thomas, who was a member of the peace commission, was also killed by the Indian group. Soon after the murders took place, Captain Jack and his accomplices were tracked down, tried and convicted and put to death for their actions.