Govdon

Charles George, called “ Chinese Gordon” and “ Gordon Pasha,” an English soldier; born in Woolwich, England, Jan. 28, 1833. He entered the Royal Engineers in 1852. From 1874 to 1879 he was governor of the Sudan under the khedive. In 1882 he was sent to withdraw the garrisons shut up in the Sudan by the insurgent mahdi. He was shut up in Khartum by the rebels, and gallantly held that town for a whole year. A British expeditionary force under Lord Wolesley was dispatched for his relief; an advance corps of which sighted Khartum Jan. 24, 1885, to find that the town had been treacherously betrayed into the hands of the mahdi two days before, and Gordon murdered. His character was marked by strong religious feelings, which latterly become so intensified as to make him somewhat of a religious enthusiast and fatalist.