The Life of Gordon; Major-General, R. E., C. B.; Turkish Field-Marshal, Grand Gordon Medjidieh, and Pasha; Chinese Titu (Field-Marshal), Yellow Jacket Order
London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1897. Third Edition [stated]. Presumed first printing thus. Hardcover. vii, [5], 337, [3] pages. Three illustrations. Footnote. Front board weak. Shaken. Fep separated by present. Rep is fragile and partially separated. Cover worn and soiled. Decorative front cover. Ex-Wilbur Huntington Proctor private library. Some of the usual library markings. Proctor served in the Civil War as a musician in Company G of the 70th New York Infantry Regiment, Company K of the 86th New York Infantry Regiment, and the 14th Infantry Regiment and later in Idaho territory. He was discharged from military service in 1868 and in 1912 had certification for his military pension. Demetrius Charles De Kavanagh Boulger (14 July 1853 – 15 December 1928) was a British author. Beginning in 1876, Boulger contributed to the important British journals on questions concerning India, China, Egypt and Turkey and Congo. With Sir Lepel Griffin he founded in 1885 the Asiatic Quarterly Review and edited it during the first four and one-half years of its publication. Major-General Charles George Gordon CB (28 January 1833 – 26 January 1885), also known as Chinese Gordon, Gordon Pasha, and Gordon of Khartoum, was a British Army officer and administrator. He saw action in the Crimean War as an officer in the British Army. However, he made his military reputation in China, where he was placed in command of the "Ever Victorious Army", a force of Chinese soldiers led by European officers which was instrumental in putting down the Taiping Rebellion, regularly defeating much larger forces. For these accomplishments, he was given the nickname "Chinese Gordon" and honors from both the Emperor of China and the British. He entered the service of the Khedive of Egypt in 1873 (with British government approval) and later became the Governor-General of the Sudan, where he did much to suppress revolts and the local slave trade. Exhausted, he resigned and returned to Europe in 1880. A serious revolt then broke out in the Sudan, led by a Muslim religious leader and self-proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad. In early 1884 Gordon was sent to Khartoum with instructions to secure the evacuation of loyal soldiers and civilians and to depart with them. In defiance of those instructions, after evacuating about 2,500 civilians he retained a smaller group of soldiers and non-military men. In the months before the fall of Khartoum, Gordon and the Mahdi corresponded; Gordon offered him the Sultanate of Kordofan and the Mahdi requested Gordon to convert to his religion and join him, to which Gordon replied abruptly: "No!" Besieged by the Mahdi's forces, Gordon organized a citywide defense that lasted for almost a year and gained him the admiration of the British public, but not of the government, which had wished him not to become entrenched. Only when public pressure to act had become irresistible did the government, with reluctance, send a relief force. It arrived two days after the city had fallen and Gordon had been killed. Condition: Fair.
Keywords: Chinese Gordon, Khartoum, Wilbur Huntington Proctor, Soudan, Sudan, China War, Taiping Rebellion, Charles George Gordon, Crimean War, British Army, Ever Victorious Army, Slave Trade, Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad
[Book #83209]
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