Frederick Townsend Ward
Frederick Townsend Ward was an American sailor and mercenary known for his military service in Imperial China during the Taiping Rebellion. He commanded the Ever Victorious Army, a joint Sino-foreign force, against the Taiping rebels. He remained in command of the Ever Victorious Army until his death in battle in 1862, after which leadership was taken over by Henry Andres Burgevine.
Early life and education
Ward was born in Salem, Massachusetts on November 29, 1831. Ward was rebellious in his youth, so his father removed Ward from school in 1847 and found him a position as second mate on the Hamilton, a clipper ship commanded by a family friend. Another version is that Ward demanded to leave school.Life at sea proved difficult. Ward was given authority over many "old salts". He was thrown overboard after complaints that he gave too many orders for a youth. Captain William Allen recalled that Ward possessed traits of "reckless daring", but was on the whole a valuable officer.
On the Hamilton, Ward sailed from New York to Hong Kong in 1847, but probably saw little beyond the port city because the Qing dynasty forbade foreigners from venturing inland.
In 1849, Ward enrolled at the American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy, now Norwich University in Vermont from 1846 to 1848, where the curriculum included military tactics, strategy, drill, and ceremonies. In 1850 he shipped out as first mate of the clipper ship Russell Clover. His father was the captain.
Timeline through the 1850s
- 1850 First Mate, clipper ship Russell Clover, New York to San Francisco. Visits Gold Fields Meets Giuseppe Garibaldi in Panama or Peru
- 1851 First Mate, trading barque, San Francisco & Shanghai. Sailor, coastal cargo ships, China coast
- 1852 Sailor, coastal cargo ships, China coast, First Officer, cargo ship Gold Hunter, carrying coolie labor to Mexico. Debarks in Tehuantepec, Mexico. Meets William Walker, joins Walker forces as filibuster.
- 1853 Part of Walker's Sonora Filibuster Invasion of Mexico, resigns sometime in 1853 or 1854, remains in Mexico
- 1854 Mexico, scrap metal business. Venture fails, travels to San Francisco by mule. First Mate, Westward Ho! clipper ship, San Francisco – New York – Hong Kong. Refuses to filibuster for Manchu Government unwilling to employ Westerners. Ward returns to New York, enlists in French Army, Enters Crimean War
- 1855 Ward in Crimean War, allowed to resign after insubordination to superior
- 1856 Whereabouts unknown
- 1857 China, First Mate on coastal steamship Antelope
- 1858 Mercenary for Juarez in Mexico Texas Ranger
- 1859 New York City, clerk in father's shipping agency office. Travels to San Francisco en route to Shanghai
- 1860 Arrives in Shanghai,. XO on the Confucius, armed pirate suppression river steamer. Commander, Foreign Army Corps.
Filibustering
Ward also learned to avoid some of Walker's practices and behaviors. Walker had a reputation for being "excessively vain, weak minded and ambitious… his weakness renders him cruel…" During Ward's later time in China, he displayed respect and concern for the Western and Chinese troops under his command, whom he referred to as "my people".
Ward learned about practical warfare during his "filibusteresque" experience in 1854 and when he served as a lieutenant with the French Army in the Crimean War. He learned about weapons, tactics, using riflemen in mobile platoons rather than in fixed firing lines and siege techniques. Ward also learned that the frontal assault was of limited value against disciplined long-range firepower, and he gained experience under fire. He did not serve throughout the entire war, because he was 'allowed' to resign after being insubordinate to a superior officer.
In 1857, Ward sought work as a mercenary, but when he did not secure such work, he served as the first mate on a coastal steamship in dangerous waters. He worked as a shipping agent in his father's New York City office alongside his brother in 1859.
Shanghai newcomer
The Gen. Ward came to Penang on the steamer Ganges accompanied by the U.S. Minister and was transferred to the USS Powhatan on his way to Pekin in May 1859. The American government also at the same time chartered the steamer Hong Kong to accompany Ward into the north and to return the remains of Ye Mingchen's for interment in Canton, 13 May 1859.According to a contemporary account written in early 1862, Ward and his brother arrived in Shanghai, China in 1860 for the purpose of trading, perhaps as an extension of their father's New York office. This may be true, but given Ward's activities in the 1850s it is almost certain that Ward had ulterior motives for his return. He had little respect for the Shanghai business practices, which he dismissed as "lying, swindling and smuggling". Their arrival coincided with a buildup of Taiping forces in the area.
While Ward's brother set up a trading business in Shanghai, Ward himself took up customary employment as the executive officer on the Confucius, an armed riverboat commanded by an American, employed by the Shanghai Pirate Suppression Bureau. The Bureau was organized by Xue Huan and Wu Xu, Shanghai governmental officials who took pains to shield explicit imperial association with Western mercenaries and military, and primarily funded by Yang Fang, a prominent Ningbo banker and mercantilist.
Ward's show of bravery and initiative on board the Confucius reflected great credit upon him, and the prominent men of Shanghai took notice. His exploits, previous military experience, ability to empathise with local populations and motivate Chinese soldiers, and his stated mercenary intentions, made him an attractive candidate to lead a force of foreign nationals in defense of Shanghai against encroaching Taiping forces.
Wu Xu and Yang Fang both increasingly recognized that such a force was necessary, as Imperial forces, frequently staffed by Confucian scholars and conscripts, rather than experienced commanders and soldiers, had all too often proven unequal to the task of defeating Taiping forces.
Through their contacts with the Western business community, and Ward's own relentless self-promotion, in the spring of 1860 Wu and Fang reached out to Ward and became his employers. Ward then began scouring the wharves of Shanghai for every Westerner, sober or otherwise, capable of firing a weapon. With this, the Shanghai Foreign Arms Corps was born, which in defeat, would form the nucleus for the Ever Victorious Army.
Shanghai Foreign Arms Corps
In 1860, both Chinese and Westerners would place more faith in a small, motley group of mercenaries than readily available local citizenry, because the average Chinese of the time had little understanding of marksmanship, nor much impetus to defend the Manchu throne. Further, with Taiping armies edging closer to Shanghai, there was no time to train native peasants in either conventional Chinese or Western warfare.On the Shanghai docks, however, Westerners with diverse military experience existed as "discharged seamen, deserters, and other drifters who made Shanghai their temporary home, and even the gainfully employed could be tempted by the prospect of adventure, high pay, and loot" into joining Western-led mercenary endeavours.
This weapon, already forged, was used by Ward against the Taipings, with the backing of local Shanghai ministers and merchants, in a highly charged political atmosphere in which the Manchu Imperial forces had no desire to show their reliance upon Western powers. By the same token, the diplomats and military men of the Western powers discouraged foreign involvement in domestic Chinese matters, even by Westerners in Chinese employ. The Western powers' concerns did not relate to principle; they were most concerned about the power of the Taipings to block trade downriver from the interior to Shanghai if neutrality were violated.
By June 1860, Ward had a polyglot force of 100 Westerners, trained in the best small arms and rifles available for purchase in Shanghai. Protesting that his forces were not fully trained, Ward was forced by his Shanghai backers to take his men into action alongside Imperial forces probing Taiping advances, retaking two captured towns. They were then forced by circumstances to assault the Taiping occupied and fortified city of Songjiang, without artillery—a near-impossible task.
The attack failed, sending the thoroughly defeated force back to Shanghai. However, by mid-July, Ward had recruited additional Westerners and over 80 Filipino "Manilamen", and purchased several artillery pieces, and once again, his forces assaulted Sung-Chiang. They were successful, but at enormous cost. Out of a force of roughly 250 men, 62 were killed, and 100 were wounded, including Ward himself.
Ward and his forces now gained a notoriety that attracted new recruits, and enraged local Westerners who saw Ward as an inflammatory, filibustering element sure to force the Taipings to stop the flow of trade. More disconcertingly, the Taipings themselves were now aware of a new and potent force against them.
On August 2, 1860, Ward led the Foreign Arms Corps against Chingpu, the next town from Sung-chiang on the approaches to Shanghai, and this time the Taiping were prepared. As the Corps stormed a garrison wall, Taiping forces lying in ambush waited for the optimum moment and then delivered a withering barrage of close-range musket fire. Within 10 minutes, the Foreign Arms Corps had suffered 50% casualties, and Ward himself was shot in the left jaw, with an exit wound in the right cheek, scarring him for life and leaving him with a speech impediment.
The force retreated and Ward returned to Shanghai for medical treatment and to attempt to recruit more forces and buy additional artillery. Within several days he and the remnants of the Foreign Arms Corps laid siege to Chingpu and bombarded it with artillery. By this time, the Taiping's best military leader Li Xiucheng, called Zhong Wang or "The Faithful King", dispatched 20,000 troops downriver to break the siege, sending the Foreign Arms Corps fleeing back to the Songjiang area, where Ward's second-in-command, Henry Andres Burgevine, held the Corps briefly together, but it soon "ceased to function as an organized entity".
Ward returned to Shanghai for further treatment of his injury, and was there while the Zhong Wang's forces laid siege, and were beaten back by Western and Imperial forces within the city. Ward left Shanghai in late 1860 for further treatment of his facial wound, while the remnants of the Corps remained more or less under the command of Burgevine. After Ward's death, Burgevine briefly took command of the force, but could not get along with his Imperial Chinese superiors and struck Yang Fang, whereupon Burgevine was relieved of command; he later went over to the Taiping rebels. In 1865, Burgevine was arrested by Imperial officers and died in a drowning accident.
It is unclear as to whether Yang was still funding the Corps in the late fall of 1860, but upon Ward's return in the spring of 1861, Ward was able to attract desired elements of the Corps back to his employ. After his return, Ward tenaciously began to recruit and train replacements for the Foreign Arms Corps, offering terms attractive enough to cause desertion among the many British warships in port. Ward, facing arrest and numerous political difficulties arising from the Western governments' desire to remain neutral, opted to become a Chinese subject, by entering a seemingly rushed marriage with a Chinese woman. In addition, the provincial governor in Shanghai produced falsified papers ostensibly proving his Chinese citizenship. These papers were seemingly convincing enough that the US consul refused to prosecute him, at which point British Admiral James Hope locked him up in a room of his flagship to prevent more British men from being lured into Qing military service. Ward jumped through an open window late one night, and promptly disappeared.
In May 1861, Ward once again led the Foreign Arms Corps into battle at Chingpu, and once again, the assault failed, with heavy casualties. This was the last major engagement of the Foreign Arms Corps in its "primarily Western" configuration.
Judgments as to the effectiveness of the Foreign Army Corps vary depending upon the sympathies of the author. The most recent Ward biographer, Caleb Carr, seems fairly generous in his estimation of Ward's accomplishments in his 1992 work. However, perhaps the most authoritative judgment was rendered by Richard J. Smith, who stated:
Repeatedly sent into the field without adequate preparation by Ward's frantic sponsors, the poorly trained and ill-disciplined contingent stood virtually no chance of success against Li Xiucheng's seasoned troops. Sometimes drunk and always disorderly, the Foreign-Arms Corps depended primarily on the element of surprise and the superiority of Western weapons to obtain victory.
Ward clearly recognized the harsh truth of this statement. He soon embarked upon a new scheme, in which he would reform the more reliable elements of the Corps into the nucleus of an effective fighting force, composed primarily of local Chinese.