Charles Gordon

General Gordon

Charles George Gordon, (b. 1833, d. 1885) was a British General famous for commanding the British garrison at Khartoum, Sudan and withstanding a ten-month siege by The Mahdi before being killed just 2 days before relief arrived.

Gordon joined the Royal Engineers in 1852 and, as a sapper, fought in the Crimean War from 1855-56. In 1860 he was posted to China where he took command of a military formation, the 'Ever Victorious Army', which fought against rebel Taiping forces in the Shanghai and Hangzhou area. For this he became known as 'Chinese Gordon'. In 1877 Gordon was appointed Governor of the Sudan but resigned in 1880 owing to poor health. However, he returned in 1884 to relieve Egyptian garrisons which lay in rebel territory. He was besieged at Khartoum for ten months before being killed just two days before a relief force arrived.

## External source[edit]

* Gordon, martyr and misfit, Anthony Nutting. Reprint Society London, 1967.
* (For the particular source of the time of arrival of the relief steamers (which did not stay as it was realised immediately, even from mid-river, that they were too late), please see page 276.)

## See also[edit]

For the Canadian author, see Ralph Connor.