Samuel Enderby of Croom's Hill, Blackheath, was born at Woolwich on 28 Jan. 1833. He was sent to school at Taunton in 1843, and entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1848. He obtained a commission in the royal engineers on 23 June 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 1 Jan. 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 6 June 1855, and was present at the attack of the Redan on 18 June. 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 Honour.
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 commissioners to the Armenian frontier to superintend the erection of the boundary posts of the line they had previously surveyed. This was finished in November, and Gordon returned home, having acquired an intimate knowledge of the people of the districts visited.
On 1 April 1859 Gordon was promoted captain, and about the same time appointed second adjutant of the corps at Chatham, a post he held for little more than a year, for, in the summer of 1860, he joined the forces of Sir James Hope Grant operating with the French against China. He overtook the allied army at Tientsin, and was present in October at the capture of Pekin and the pillage and destruction of the emperor's summer palace. For his services in this campaign he received the British war medal with clasp for Pekin and a brevet majority in December 1862. Gordon commanded the royal engineers at Tientsin, when the British forces remained there under Sir Charles Staveley, and, while thus employed, made several expeditions into the interior, in one of which he explored a considerable section of the great wall of China. In April 1862 he was summoned to Shanghai to assist in the operations consequent upon the determination of Sir Charles Staveley to keep a radius of thirty miles round the city clear of the rebel Taipings. Gordon took part as commanding royal engineer in the storming of Sing-poo and several other fortified towns, and in clearing the rebels out of Kah-ding. He was afterwards employed in surveying the country round Shanghai.
The Taiping rebellion was of so barbarous a nature that its suppression had become necessary in the interests of civilisation. A force raised at the expense of the Shanghai merchants, and supported by the Chinese government, had been for some years struggling against its progress. This force, known as the ‘Ever Victorious Army,’ was commanded at first by Ward, an American, and, on his death, by Burgevine, also an American, who was summarily dismissed; for a short time the command was held by Holland, an English marine officer, but he was defeated at Taitsan 22 Feb. 1863.
Li Hung Chang, governor-general of the Kiang provinces, then applied to the British commander-in-chief for the services of an English officer, and Gordon was authorised to accept the command. He arrived at Sung-Kiong and entered on his new duties as a mandarin and lieutenant-colonel in the Chinese service on 24 March 1863. His force was composed of some three to four thousand Chinese officered by 150 Europeans of almost every nationality and often of doubtful character. By the indomitable will of its commander this heterogeneous body was moulded into a little army whose high-sounding title of ‘ever victorious’ became a reality, and in less than two years, after thirty-three engagements, the power of the Taipings was completely broken and the rebellion stamped out. The theatre of operations was the district of Kiangsoo, lying between the Yang-tze-Kiang river in the north and the bay of Hang-chow in the south. When Gordon assumed command the rebels were besieging Chanzu. He at once advanced on Fushan, and after bombardment carried the town by assault, creating a panic among the rebels which led them to abandon the siege of Chanzu. He next captured Taitsan on 1 May, garrisoned by ten thousand men, after a severe fight of two days. He replenished his army by enlisting the captured rebels, and to fill the vacancies caused by the dismissal of some of his officers for misconduct he was able to secure the services of
