Soon after the defeat of the Confederates in New Mexico, General and Mrs. Canby were reassigned back East where Canby spent more than a year in bureaucratic service in Pennsylvania, New York, and Washington, D.C. sometimes as an unofficial administrative assistant to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. It was not until 1864 that Canby was allowed out from behind a desk, and he and Mrs. Canby were sent to the Trans-Mississippi region, eventually finding a home in New Orleans where Louisa stayed while her husband supported the Union's impending defeat of Confederate forces, which happened to include the remnants of Sibley's brigade; although, by this time, Sibley himself had been court-martialed for dereliction of duty during the Battle of Bisland. (Relieved of his command, he had gone to Richmond, Virginia.)