Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 49: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Great American Adventurer The result of this change of front was an extravagantly phrased rescript from Pe- king that commissioned General Wood to raise and command 6,oo0 men, named him Admiral-General, and made him a Man- darin of the ‘‘Peacock Feather.”’ With it came the famous “‘ Yellow Jacket,”’ equiva- lent in China to the Golden Fleece or the Order of the Garter. The new force was designated Chun Chen Chiin, “The Ever Victorious Army.”’ The American General left the enlisting of recruits to trusted lieutenants and him- self took command in the front with a vet- eran column, General Staveley, the new Generalissimo on that Station, sometimes marching with him with a small detach- ment of Sepoys and marines. Staveley took the game with the spirit of a sportsman. He said he loved to see Ward and his pig- tailed champions dash at the enemy like a fox-hunter negotiating a stiff hedge. It was Clear that the American was looked on as peculiarly fit for a hard job, and that it was to be left pretty much to his sledge- hammer hitting. ’ In the capture of the city of Wang Kadza about this time, early in 1862, Ward expe- rienced the magic virtue of the baton. From the corner of a house a Taiping leaped before him with leveled rifle. Ten feet away meant sure death. Ward grimaced, raised his talismanic staff and uttered some words in Chinese, while the other stood petrified with terror till a revolver-shot fired from the hip tumbled him over. It was in April, 1862, that a council of war was held at Sung Kiang. Sir James Hope, General Staveley, the French Ad- miral Potret, General Ward, and Viceroy Lich being present. It was here that Ward’s general plan was fully sanctioned. This showed great grasp of military strat- egy. The proposition was to capture the cities of Kahding, Sing Poo, Najaor, Tsaolin and lesser fortified places within a radius of forty miles from Shanghai, The gradual advance of the Chinese lines, if the expand- ing circle of bayonets could be made good, would shut down the supplies of the rebels, for they would be cut off from trade and the seaboard and compelled to live on an already devastated country. By and by Ward’s increasing army would venture to attack Fuchau and Nanking, the Taiping capital. It was thought that, as their re- sources diminished, thousands of the Tai- 995 ping soldiery would desert their standards. Army movements would be supported by a flotilla of small gunboats operating on the canals opening into the Grand Canal and the Yang-tse, which made the region of operations a web-work of waterways. IT WAS on the eve of departure from Shanghai in April, 1862, to open this big campaign that General Ward wrote the last letter ever received from him in America—a letter very bold and prosaic, reticent as to details of his life, yet eloquent in its simplicity. I am still getting along, knocking the Chinese rebels in a style that I hope McClellan will the Southern rebels. I hope by Winter to have a fine army in the field, something that will make people stare out here. The Chinese make splendid fight- ers and I am determined to make a power out of them that will be respected. They all like me and I am by far considered the rising man of the coun- try. I have had no less than seventeen wounds within the last year and a half, but they can’t kill me, and when I get a few more I intend to make a definite demand on the Emperor. I believe my destiny is about being worked out here in China. Poor Ward! ‘The forefinger of fate had already begun to throw its shadow upon him. Another letter of his was a magnificent revelation of the man, if the account is to be credited. This, according to the state- ment of one of his officers and his most in- timate confidant, was a letter to Abraham Lincoln, inclosing a draft on New York for $50,000 as a contribution to the Federal cause and a substitute for the personal services which circumstances would not permit him to give. Needless to linger on the details of the successful issue, which attended the as- saults on Kahding, Sing Poo, Najaor and Tsaolin. General Ward in each case, magic baton in hand, headed the assaulting col- umn through the breach made by artillery, and his men charged as, under him, they would have charged to the very gates of Tophet, resistless in their ardor, mad with the joy of battle. In the Tsaolin affair the gallant French Admiral Protet was shot dead at his side. The campaign, however, was not one of uncheckered victory. The viceroy Lieh, in an attempt to operate on his own ac- count, approached too near Suchau, to which Chung Wang, the most intrepid and enterprising of the Taiping commanders, had retired. Lieh was terribly beaten and © MICLOOOKS CO