author
Charles George Gordon
1833–1885
A Victorian soldier-adventurer turned imperial legend, he became famous for bold campaigns in China and for his doomed last stand at Khartoum. His life mixed military action, religious conviction, and a reputation for fierce independence.
1 Audiobook
The Journals of Major-Gen. C. G. Gordon, C.B., at Kartoum.
by Charles George Gordon
About the author
Born in Woolwich, England, in 1833, Charles George Gordon trained as a Royal Engineers officer and first saw active service in the Crimean War. He later won wide attention in China, where he took command of the "Ever Victorious Army" during the Taiping Rebellion and earned the nickname "Chinese Gordon."
Gordon also served in Egypt and Sudan, where he held senior administrative posts and built a reputation for personal courage, strict discipline, and deep religious feeling. Admirers saw him as brave and self-sacrificing, while critics found him unpredictable and difficult to manage.
He is most closely linked with Khartoum, where he was sent in 1884 during the Mahdist uprising. After a long siege, the city fell in January 1885 and Gordon was killed, an event that made him one of the best-known heroic figures of the late Victorian age.