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 ;^84 WORKMEN AND HEROES GENERAL CHARLES GEORGE GORDON By Colonel R. H. Veitch, R.E. 1833-1885 Charles George Gordon, known as Chinese Gordon, major-general, C.B., royal engineers, fourth son of Lieutenant- general Henry William Gordon, royal artil- lery, and Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Enderby, of Croom's Hill, Blackheath, was born at Woolwich on January 28, 1833. He was sent to school at Taunton in 1843, and entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1848. He obtained a com- mission in the royal engineers on June 23, 1852, and, after the usual course of study at Chatham was quartered for a short time at Pembroke Dock. In December, 1854, he received his orders for the Crimea, and reached Balaklava on January 1, 1855. As a young engineer subaltern serving in the trenches, his daring was conspicuous, while his special aptitude for obtaining a personal knowledge of the movements of the enemy was a matter of common observation among his brother officers. He was wounded on June 6, 1855, and was present at the attack on the Redan on June 18th. On the surrender of Sebastopol Gordon accompanied the expedition to Kinburn, and on his return was employed on the demolition of the Sebastopol docks. For his services in the Crimea Gordon received the British war medal and clasp, the Turkish war medal, and the French Legion of Honor. In May, 1856, in company with lieutenant (now major-general) E. R. James, R.E., he joined Colonel (now General Sir) E. Stanton, R.E., in Bessarabia, as assistant commissioner for the delimitation of the new frontier line. This duty was completed in April, 1857, and he was then sent with Lieutenant James in a similar capacity to Erzeroum, where Colonel (now General Sir) Lintorn Simmons was the English commissioner for the Asiatic frontier boundary. The work was accomplished by the following October,, when Gordon returned to England. In the spring of 1858 he and Lieutenant James were sent as com- missioners to the Armenian frontier to superintend the erection of the boundary post* of the line they had previously surveyed. This was finished in November,