Description:

Gordon Charles G. "Chinese"

Chinese Gordon Contemplates His Own Death: “how wearisome this is, when you hear of some one being ill …"



Autograph Letter Signed “C.G. Gordon,” two pages, 5” x 8”, front & verso. Galatz [Romania, May 4, 1873. To Bailey. Lightly soiled. Fine condition.



In full, “I was very sorry to hear of the illness of Capt Cockcroft who has been very kind to my brothers widow at Bedford. I hope sincerely that he is restored again to health. I hope Mrs Bailey is not the worse for her nursing, how wearisome this is, when you hear of some one being ill, how much is composed in the remark, the hopes and fears & long weary nights of watching. Oh, I hope it may not come on me like that. I would like one minute not more and no nursing at all. I hope it will come so to me, depend on it my dear Bailey. God is working out a problem of love, the fleshy corrupt nature leaves us at the grave & we slough it off as it were. every night you undress is a symbol of your death, you put off your clothes and enter into piece for the most part, and so it will be with death. We out off our shrouds which bear us down and which cannot enter the true rest. Thanks for the tracing of Bender it will do just first rate I have received the maps of the Caucasus & paid Williams & Noregate for them. MacDougal wrote to me, he likes you & Wilson. he is a nice fellow. Kind regards to Mrs Bailey & deeply sympathizing with you both.”



In October 1871, Charles G. Gordon was appointed the British representative of the European Danube Navigation Commission headquartered in Galatz, Romania. In 1872, Gordon was sent to inspect the British military cemeteries in the Crimea. In September, in Constantinople, he met the Egyptian Foreign Minister who discussed possible employment in Egypt. Five months after this letter was written, in October 1873, Gordon was offered the appointment as Governor of Equatoria in southern Sudan by the Khedive of Egypt, Ismail Pasha. With the approval of the British government, he accepted and arrived in Egypt in January 1874. Gordon was also made a Colonel in the Egyptian Army.



The exact circumstances of Chinese Gordon’s death are not known. A story in the February 11, 1885 edition of the “Boston Globe” was headlined “Gordon’s Blood / Spilled on the Steps of / the Palace / Stabbed to Death by the / Mahdi’s Men.” That same day, “The New York Times” reported that “Gen. Gordon was stabbed just as he was leaving the Government House.” On March 24, 1885, the “Los Angeles Times” stated that “General Gordon was really killed by a shot from a gun and his body pierced with spears after he was dead.”



According to www.victorianweb.org, “Gordon was murdered at some point, but no one is quite sure when. Some think he was killed along with the rest of the garrison; others think he was captured and executed in the camp of the Mahdi. Official records suggest he was captured and a ransom was asked for, and when it was refused, Gordon was killed.”



In any event, as Gordon wrote in this letter almost 12 years earlier, his hope for a quick death, without lingering, was granted.

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