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THE
LIFE OF GORDON
MAJOR-GENERAL, R.E., C.B.; TURKISH FIELD-MARSHAL, GRAND
CORDON MEDJIDIEH, AND PASHA; CHINESE TITU (FIELD-MARSHAL),
YELLOW JACKET ORDER.
"'Tis a name which ne'er hath been dishonour'd,
And never will, I trust—most surely never
By such a youth as thou."
BY
DEMETRIUS C. BOULGER
AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF CHINA;" "ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN CENTRAL
ASIA;" "LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK," ETC., ETC.
WITH PORTRAIT
VOLUME I
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
MDCCCXCVI
[All rights reserved.]
General Gordon
from a photograph taken shortly after the crimea and lent by his niece, Miss Dunlop.
PREFACE.
As so many books of a more or less biographical nature have beenwritten about General Charles Gordon, it is both appropriate andnatural that I should preface the following pages with a statement ofa personal character as to how and why I have written another.
In the year 1881 I told General Gordon that I contemplated describinghis career as soon as I had finished writing my "History of China."His laughing reply was: "You know I shall never read it, but you canhave all my papers now in the possession of my brother, Sir HenryGordon." My history took a very long time to write, and the thirdvolume was not published until April 1884, when General Gordon washemmed in, to use his own words, at Khartoum.
For over two years General Gordon's papers and letters remained in mycustody, and they included the Equator and Soudan correspondence,which was so admirably edited by Dr Birkbeck Hill in that intenselyinteresting volume, "Colonel Gordon in Central Africa." The papersrelating to China and the Taeping Rebellion were freely used in myhistory. To them I have the privilege of adding in the present volumean authoritative narrative of the events that followed the executionof the Taeping Wangs at Soochow, and of thus rendering tardy justiceto the part taken in them by Sir Halliday Macartney. Among thecontents of the large portmanteau in which all these documents werestored, I noticed a thick bundle of letters, in somewhat faded[Pg vi]handwriting, and an examination of their contents showed me that theywere of the deepest interest as relating to the important events ofthe Crimean War, and to the first seven years of Gordon's service inthe Army. I at once went to Sir Henry Gordon, who honoured me with hisfriendship and confidence in no less a degree than his di