The English soldier, adventurer, and popular hero Charles George Gordon (1833-1885) was known as "Chinese" Gordon. He was killed at the fall of Khartoum.

Born at Woolwich on Jan. 28, 1833, Charles George Gordon was the son of a lieutenant general. He attended Taunton School and entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1848, gaining his commission in the Royal Engineers in 1852.

At the end of 1855, during the Crimean War, Gordon was ordered to the Crimea. He was wounded there and then worked on the demolition of Sevastopol harbor. From May 1856 he was engaged in quasi-political work helping to delimit the frontiers of Bessarabia and Armenia. In 1860 Gordon joined the British forces operating with the French against China and was at the capture of Peking, spending the next 2 years fighting in southern China.

In 1863 Gordon took command of the small Chinese army in Sinkiang, which was officered by Europeans and...