GORDON, Charles George Or English soldier: b. Woolwich, 28 Jan. 1833; d. Khartum, Africa, 27 Jan. 1885. He entered the Royal Engineers as second lieutenant in 1852, and served in the Crimean War and during the Taiping rebellion, with the permission of the English military au thorities, assumed the command of a special corps of Chinese, trained and led by European and American officers. With these materials he performed marvelous feats of skilful sol diership and succeeded in completely crushing the rebellion. The Chinese government was eager to express its gratitude, but he refused all offers of substantial reward. On his return to England with the rank of colonel, he was ap pointed chief engineer officer at Gravesend for the construction of the Thames defenses. Here, while his engineering work afforded ample scope for his military talents, the philanthropy of his nature had full scope. During the six years he lived at Gravesend his house was school and hospital and almshouse in turn. Many a waif he rescued from the gutter, establishing evening classes for their benefit and keeping sight of the more deserving till they were provided with a career in life; all this being done on his pay as an English colonel, without any private re sources whatever. In 1873 Gordon was gov ernor of the Equatorial Provinces of Egypt. Being thwarted by the governor of the Sudan in his efforts to suppress the slave trade he re signed and returned to England. He again took up the post in 1877, on condition that he should be permitted to abolish the slave trade, which he successfully accomplished. In 1880 he went to China as adviser to the government there during their strained relations with Russia. In 1881-82 he was commanding engineer in the Mauritias, and served for a brief period in the latter year in South Africa. In 1884 he paid
a visit to the Holy Land. In 1881 Mohammed Ahmed, a Mussulman enthusiast, had given him self out to be the Mandi — the long-expected Redeemer of Islam — and gathered a number of followers around him who threatened the safety of the Egyptian garrisons in the Sudan. It having been decided in 1884 that the Sudan be evacuated, the presence of an English officer of high authority at Khartum was asked, with full power to withdraw all the garrisons in the Sudan, and make the best arrangements pos sible for the future government of the country. Gordon, at the request of the British govern ment, proceeded to the Sudan in the hope that his great personal influence and knowledge of the country would help to set matters right. These hopes were not fulfilled; Gordon was shut up in Khartum by the troops of the Mandi, and for a whole year he held that town against the Arabs who surrounded him. An English force under Wolseley was dispatched for his relief, an advance corps of which sighted Khartum on 28 Jan. 1885, to find that the town had been treacherously betrayed into the hands of the Mandi two days before, and that its heroic defender had been killed. Gordon had all the qualities which are found in a success ful military leader, modified, however, by strong religious feeling which shaded into mysticism, and which latterly became so intensified as to give him somewhat the character of a religious fatalist. He left a most interesting journal, kept during the latter period of his siege in Khartum. Consult Hill, 'Gordon in Central Africa' (1881) ; lives by Forbes (1884) • Henry Gordon (1886) ; Boulger (1896). An interesting chapter on his last mission will be found in Morley's 'Life of Gladstone,' book VIII, chap. IX.