The ships and sailors of old Salem

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

Ward paid off and discharged this company and recruited his next force largely from among the native sailors of Manila who were always to be found in Shanghai. With only two white officers and less than one hundred men the American adventurer made a second attack on the rebel stronghold and surprising the garrison at night managed to open one of the gates and charge into the city. The Tai-pings were unable to withstand the headlong assault of this small column and surrendered the place, which was looted and the plunder given to the men who had captured it.

Ward had carried out his contract and the Chinese Imperial Treasurer paid him his price. He had established a base and a fortress to hold and there were funds in his war chest. His success attracted many capable foreign fighting men and his force grew until General Frederick Townsend Ward was able to organize a formidable body of drilled soldiers to which the name of Chang-Shing Kiun, or “Ever Victorious Force,” was given by the Chinese. Its composition was heterogeneous, but the energy, tact and discipline of the leader soon molded it into something like a martial corps, able to serve as a nucleus for training a native army.

“Foreigners generally looked down upon the undertaking and many of the allied naval and military officers regarded it with doubt and dislike. It had to prove its character by works, but the successive defeats of the insurgents during the year 1862 at Kiangsu and Chehkiang clearly demonstrated the might of those drilled men over ten times their number of undisciplined braves.

“Soon after his first success General Ward decided to move against Tsing-pu, a Rebel stronghold thirty miles from his base. The flower of his fighting force for this expedition consisted of five drill-masters and twenty-five deserters, mostly English, whom he had secretly enlisted at Shanghai. Added to these was his small command of Manila-men, now two hundred in number and a body of five thousand Chinese from the highly paid, picked troops of the foremost Chinese general, Li Ai Tang, a corps distinguished by the title of “Imperial Braves.”[48]

In September of 1861 Ward launched this force against Tsing-pu, which was garrisoned by two thousand rebels, who were commanded by a brilliant English officer named Savage. The defense conducted by this opposing soldier of fortune was so successful that Ward’s little army was crumpled up by volleys of musketry poured from the walls and totally defeated in an engagement which lasted not more than a quarter of an hour. Half of the attacking force was killed or wounded and Ward himself was five times hit by bullets. While he was under the surgeon’s care in Shanghai he gave it out that his force had been disbanded because the foreign allies set up the claim that he had been guilty of a breach of neutrality. His enlistments and drills went on in secret, however, and his chief supporter, Taki, put him in possession of several batteries of artillery.

When Ward was allowed to leave the hospital he mustered all the men he could find of his old corps and made ready to take the field. Again he sallied out against Tsing-pu, but the second attack was even more disastrous than the first. He lost his guns and his gunboats and many of his men and returned to his headquarters at Sung Kiang beaten and discredited. Taki, representing the Imperial Government, had lost confidence in Ward as a soldier, but Li Hung Chang still had faith in him and was ready to support him in further movements.

Ward’s funds were at a low ebb at this time, for Admiral Sir James Hope, of the British Navy, put him under arrest and held him a close prisoner on the flagship Chesapeake. The Admiral made an effort to bring Ward to trial on the charge of recruiting deserters from the British Navy, but the American soldier proved that he was a naturalized subject of China and the Admiral had no other resource than to keep this troublesome interloper a prisoner on board the flagship. He made his escape by jumping overboard and swimming ashore. After a series of thrilling adventures he once more returned to the task of recruiting British deserters for his garrison at Sung Kiang.

The jealousy and animosities of the British and other foreign naval men soon led Ward to change his tactics and he bent his efforts to recruit a native force to be commanded by European officers and drilled in the European school of arms. Neither the Imperial Government of China, nor its European allies could take exceptions to these methods and Sung Kiang became a military school for the training of the first modern Chinese Army.

“On a personal inspection of the Camp of Instruction at Sung Kiang to which he had been invited, Sir James Hope was well received by the troops and reported favorably. He saw, for the first time in his life, a large force of native Chinamen paraded in European uniforms and showing themselves expert in European drill. In view of such results and of the possibilities which they disclosed, he found it best to wink at the harboring of a few deserters from his fleet, and Ward was promised every facility in his new attempt.

“In the opening months of 1862 the time had come when the Allies were ready to throw off the mask of nominal neutrality, and to take open ground against the Rebellion. Humanity and civilization itself seemed to demand it. The Tai-ping movement was a little past its zenith, but still most disastrous to commerce and to the general interests of China as most foreigners saw them. The compact between the Imperialists and the Rebels had provided that the latter should not come within thirty miles of Shanghai and that the Allies should not interfere within that radius. It was limited to a year and the limit had expired. Ward at this time commanded a force of ten thousand men. He seems at last to have come to terms of perfect understanding with the authorities, both native and foreign.