The Devil Soldier (45 page)

In this atmosphere of peril and confusion, Ward received orders to proceed to Ningpo and assume personal command of defensive efforts
in the region. The call found the commander of the Ever Victorious Army ready, as a group of visiting Western officers discovered on the day before Ward’s departure for Ningpo. As Charles
Schmidt recalled, the officers

expressed a desire to see the whole force under the General’s command. Although it was already late in the afternoon, General Ward, ever obliging, ordered a general parade of all troops in the garrison. The whole force accordingly assembled and never have I seen the General in better spirits than that afternoon. No doubt he felt the just pride of being able to show these officers a disciplined force of several thousand Chinese entirely his own creation, and which had already shown it could withstand a rebel force ten times its strength on the open battle field. He gave them an ocular demonstration that he was something more than a mere fillibuster [
sic
], as most British officers took him to be, with the honorable exception perhaps of Admiral Sir James Hope, who seemed already to have recognized General Ward’s military talent and become his warm friend. Poor General! He little thought that this parade would be his last one. Nor did the officers and men think that they would see their beloved and respected General for the last time that evening.

On September 18 Ward left for Ningpo aboard the
Confucius
, accompanied by the two hundred men of his personal bodyguard—commanded by Major James Edward Cook—as well as by Vincente Macanaya and Colonel Forester. In Ningpo he met with his friend Captain Dew and made plans for a well-coordinated effort to meet the rebel threat in the area. But on September 19 came bad news that seriously altered the theater picture: The Taipings had taken the city of Tz’u-ch’i, on the water line from Ningpo to Yü-yao. The Yü-yao garrison now faced the possibility of being cut off, and, just as important, there was a danger that the large local rice crop would fall into rebel hands. Ward moved quickly to put the situation right.

On September 20 Ward marched his bodyguard to Tz’u-ch’i. Captain Dew and Lieutenant Archibald Bogle also proceeded to Tz’u-ch’i, on board the
Hardy
. The
Confucius
went ahead to ferry Major Morton’s
force down from Yü-yao. According to Andrew
Wilson, the grassy fields that surrounded Tz’u-ch’i had been ignited when the city was taken by the rebels and were still burning when Ward arrived: “The whole plain seemed on fire. The terror-stricken inhabitants, many of them swimming on logs, were crossing the river; and for miles the long reeds, on its banks gave shelter to men, women and children up to the middle in water.” Ward and his men spent the twentieth chasing Taiping looting parties back inside Tz’u-ch’i. At midnight Captain Dew received word that Ningpo was being threatened from the north, and he hurried back to the port, leaving Lieutenant Bogle and the
Hardy
with Ward.

Early on the morning of the twenty-first, Major Morton and his four hundred men arrived from Yü-yao, having left Tardif de Moidrey and his Franco-Chinese troops behind as a garrison. Immediately, Ward held a council of war and outlined an attack: Lieutenant Bogle was to shell Tz’u-ch’i’s western gate and provide cover for a storming party that would be commanded by Major Cook. Cook was to feint at the city’s southern wall before making his actual attempt to climb the west gate. “You must do it with a rush,” Ward was heard to tell Cook, “or we shall fail, for they are very numerous.”

At about seven-thirty the
Hardy
opened fire, and within an hour Cook’s men were ready to scale the walls. What happened next is, in keeping with the rest of Ward’s life, somewhat clouded by contradictory accounts. Forester later claimed that he and Ward supervised the preparation of the scaling ladders, oblivious to danger: “We had become so accustomed to the enemy’s fire that we had grown somewhat careless. While standing side by side inspecting the position, Ward put his hand suddenly to his abdomen and exclaimed, ‘I have been hit.’ A brief investigation of the wound showed that it was a serious one, and I had him carried on board the ‘Hardy,’ where surgical attendance was promptly given.”

Ward had in fact been hit by a Taiping musket ball in the abdomen. But as for Forester’s being present, Lieutenant Bogle, in his account of the day’s action, stated that after Ward fell command devolved on Major Morton, suggesting that Forester was still in Ningpo. And while it is true that Ward was removed to the
Hardy
, there was no medical officer on
board that vessel, hence no “surgical attendance” to be “promptly given.” Again, Forester’s account raises more questions than it answers.

A rumor quickly spread among Ward’s men that their commander had been shot not with a Taiping musket but with a Western rifle fired by a European mercenary from the walls of Tz’u-ch’i. This story may have been invented to heighten the rage of the Ever Victorious Army troops; if so, it succeeded. Since forming his first contingent in 1860, Ward had been wounded at least fifteen times—but he had never allowed anyone to take him from his men. Even at the first battle of Ch’ing-p’u, when his jaw had been shattered, Ward had refused to leave the field. But here, before Tz’u-ch’i, a sniping shot had finally broken that long battlefield bond, and in the wake of Ward’s removal the men of the Ever Victorious Army climbed the walls of Tz’u-ch’i with speed and heartfelt conviction. First up, appropriately enough, was Vincente Macanaya, whose courage was duplicated by the unit’s other officers: “I myself noticed,” wrote Lieutenant
Bogle to Captain Dew, “that all the officers led their men over the ladders.” Faced with such determination, the Taipings soon abandoned Tz’u-ch’i.

But there was little rejoicing among the conquerors, for on board the
Hardy
the news was all bad. Ward was placed on a suspended cot as the ship made for Ningpo and skilled surgical care at full steam. But it was clear that Ward might not last the journey. In excruciating pain, he drifted in and out of consciousness. During one of Ward’s waking moments, Lieutenant Bogle, fearing the worst, told his comrade that he was near death and asked him if he had made a will. Ward was able to whisper to Bogle that Wu Hsü owed him 110,000 taels, and Yang Fang 30,000. “I wish my wife to have 50,000 taels,” Ward said, Bogle writing the words down, “and all that remains to be between my brother and my sister. I wish Admiral Sir James Hope and Mr. Burlinghame [
sic
] to be my executors.” Bogle then witnessed the document, as did the ship’s boatswain.

In Ningpo Ward was taken to the house of a missionary surgeon. The musket ball, which had become embedded in the muscles of his lower back, was removed, but the damage it had done proved too great: On the morning of September 22, after enduring almost twenty-four
hours of agony, the creator and commander of the Ever Victorious Army died.

In a little more than two months, he would have been thirty-one years old.

EPILOGUE
“POOR OLD WARD”

A potential for intrigue, conflict, and chaos had always existed among the officers of the Ever Victorious Army, their Chinese superiors, and the Western soldiers, diplomats, and merchants with whom the army did regular business. By September 1862 this potential had assumed alarming proportions. Up to that point it had been kept in check only by Ward himself: The young commander’s charm, determination, and ability to manage those above and below him had consistently prevented a serious crisis. With Ward’s death, however, the affairs of the Ever Victorious Army, as well as conditions on the eastern front of the Chinese civil war generally, began a steady collapse into a state of dangerous confusion.

This degeneration began literally within hours of Ward’s passing. In Ningpo, Edward Forester ordered his leader’s remains taken aboard the
Confucius
for transfer back to Sung-chiang. As the gunboat made ready to leave, Ward’s body was guarded by an officer of the Ever Victorious Army. Some years later this man gave an anonymous interview to A. A. Hayes. Knowing that both Wu Hsü and Yang Fang had proved most reluctant to recognize the legitimacy of Ward’s dying claim that they owed him 140,000 taels—and further aware that neither Wu nor Yang had been above falsifying documents in order to prove their case—Hayes thought back during the interview to the small account book that Ward had always carried in the breast pocket of his frock coat. If an accurate record of Ward’s dealings could have been found anywhere,
Hayes suspected, it would have been in that book, and he asked the former
Ever Victorious Army officer what had happened to it.

“I can tell you,” the man answered. “I was guarding the general’s body. The blue coat which you remember lay on a chair, and the book was in the breast pocket. Colonel—–, my superior officer, relieved me. The book was never seen again, but
I saw Colonel—– buy exchange for forty thousand dollars
.” (Original emphasis.) Hayes’s unwillingness to name the colonel in question was understandable: Edward Forester—the only Ever Victorious Army colonel in Ningpo at the time of Ward’s death—was still alive when Hayes published his story. Hayes apparently accepted the officer’s assertion that the account book had disappeared following Forester’s watch over Ward’s body, yet the officer had not actually witnessed its removal. There was thus no way to prove the allegation that Forester had stolen and sold the book, and had Hayes named Forester he would have opened himself to legal action. What Hayes did not know was that the account book was in fact seen again, in Shanghai after the
Confucius
returned with Ward’s body.

Major James E. Cook, the commander of Ward’s bodyguard, later stated in a sworn deposition that following his return from Ningpo he “had occasion to visit a house and room occupied by Col. Forrester [
sic
] and saw there a small account book which he [Cook] knew General Ward had always carried with him in his pocket. He [Cook] opened it and knew the handwriting of General Ward and saw that these were various accounts of monies with persons connected with the forces.” Cook left the book in Forester’s room, which happened to be in a house that belonged to Yang Fang, and he thought nothing more of the matter until some months later when Forester, claiming ill health, resigned his commission and speedily left China, just as a protracted legal battle over Ward’s estate was getting under way.

If we put Cook’s story together with that of Hayes’s unnamed officer, we get a rough and all too disheartening picture of what happened to Ward’s account book. Forty-thousand dollars amounted to about twenty-five thousand taels, or one-sixth the amount Ward claimed from Wu Hsü and Yang Fang in his will. That Yang and Wu would have gladly paid Forester such a sum to ensure the defeat of Ward’s claim
is beyond doubt. But the answer to the nagging question of why Forester—a man who had always exerted himself for Ward and had enjoyed Ward’s trust in return—agreed to such an arrangement remains hidden. Certainly, Forester had suffered during his imprisonment at the hands of the rebels and probably knew that his health would not permit him to serve in the Ever Victorious Army very much longer. Yet avarice does not seem an adequate explanation of his actions: It was not simple greed, for example, that caused Forester to warp the history of the Ever Victorious Army as he did in his published recollections. Perhaps Forester, his seemingly faithful service notwithstanding, had been untrustworthy all along, yet it is doubtful that as shrewd a judge of personalities as Ward would have failed to recognize as much during their months of campaigning together. Or there may have been a late and specific cause for the seeming bitterness that marked Forester’s actions after Ward’s death. If so, it will in all likelihood never be discovered.

News of Ward’s death had a deep and somewhat surprising effect on the Western communities in Shanghai. Captain Roderick
Dew had already written to Admiral Hope from Ningpo, saying that it was his “painful duty” to inform the admiral that Ward had been killed in action. “During a short acquaintance with General Ward,” Dew continued, “I have learnt to appreciate him much, and I fear his death will cast a gloom over the Imperial cause in China, of which he was the stay and prop.” Hope passed the news on to the Admiralty in London, saying that “[i]t is with much regret that I have to acquaint their Lordships with the death of Colonel Ward, who was mortally wounded at the recapture of T’zu-ch’i, by which event the Chinese Government have lost an able and gallant officer who had served them well, and whom it will not be easy to replace.” Hope also communicated the news to Minister Burlingame in Peking, who, Hope was sure, would be “much grieved to hear of poor Ward’s death.” General Staveley, predictably, had no comment on Ward’s passing; but his brother-in-law and chief of engineers, Captain Charles Gordon, wrote that “I am afraid this will give the rebels much confidence as he was a very energetic man & did good service to the Chinese Govt.”

The
North China Herald
gave the news of Ward’s death a featured
spot in its September 27 issue, promising to “collect information” about Ward and his death to be published later. When it finally appeared,
the
Herald
’s assessment of Ward was quite typical of general Western feeling at the time:

Without a military education, Ward displayed on many occasions the qualities of a General. The biography of this man has yet to be written; and whatever be his antecedents the chief events of his life would be interesting. All we can remark, from the little we have gleaned of his life, is that he has been an important actor in the Taiping drama; and we should be the last to register on the annals of the campaign, any circumstance detrimental to his character before he entered upon those scenes of warfare. “Tell me not of what I was, but of what I am,” is a good motto for such wandering sons of fortune.

After the
Confucius
’s return to Shanghai, Ward’s body was taken to Sung-chiang. According to Charles Schmidt, “It was a solemn day, and the news had a depressing effect not alone on the officers and men [of the Ever Victorious Army], but even on the inhabitants of Sung-chiang. General Ward had always been a true friend to all, and just in his dealings, irrespective of nationality. All shops were closed when the corpse arrived in this city as a token of respect for the deceased.” Ward’s body was taken to Sung-chiang’s Confucian temple and temporarily placed in a corner of the courtyard (another rare honor for a Westerner) while plans were made for the actual funeral. Chinese astrologers and geomancers went to work selecting an appropriate burial site. Ward’s Chinese soldiers braided their hair with white tape, a traditional Chinese sign of mourning. His officers wore black crepe on their sleeves. And Ward’s large black-and-white mastiff wandered around the army’s training grounds and headquarters for days, hopelessly seeking his master. The dog refused to eat (or perhaps, with Ward gone, could find no one to feed him) and soon died.