Henry Evelyn Wood

He began his military career in the Royal Navy, but his ultimate fame would rest upon his land-based exploits against the Zulu warriors of southeast Africa. Less well known was the battle he fought against ill health and general frailty all his life. Against all, he was just about indomitable.

Henry Evelyn Wood was born at Cressing, near Braintree, England, in 1838, the youngest son of a vicar. Unhappy with what he regarded as unfair discipline at school, he left for the Royal Navy shortly after his 14th birthday and within two years had earned the white badge of a midshipman.

In October 1854, the year and the month of the Crimean War’s famous Charge of the Light Brigade, Wood went ashore to serve as a member of the British naval brigade in that same war. For the next nine months he worked and fought, subsisting chiefly on a diet of rotten biscuit, raw salt pork, and rum. When the British mounted their assault against the Russian defensive position known as the Redan in June 1885, Wood had been confined to bed for two weeks with dysentery and fever. It was the first of many illnesses he was to suffer throughout his career, and between genuine bouts of sickness he also had a continual list of imaginary complaints. Nevertheless, he rose from his sickbed to take his place in the assault column.

Wood was so weak that another sailor assisted him during the assault, and when they reached the Russian embankment under heavy fire, Wood and his comrade had to struggle with a scaling ladder meant to be carried by eight fully fit men. The sailor was shot and killed, and Wood was shot through the elbow. Still under fire, he crawled back to camp and argued a surgeon out of amputating his arm before he collapsed. A year later, using a pocket knife and a mirror, he removed eight bone splinters from the same wound, which had not healed properly.

Invalided home, he later was offered a commission in the army. He joined the 13th Light Dragoons, then in Ireland for training. In January 1856, Wood was on his way back to the Crimea. In February, at Scutari, he contracted both typhoid and pneumonia and was hospitalized. His mother arrived to take over his nursing, having been told that he had not long to live. By April 15, 1857, he had recovered sufficiently to return to England.

By the end of the year, despite all his health problems, Wood had rejoined his regiment in Ireland. He longed for action, and finding life in the cavalry much more expensive than he had anticipated, he was considering joining the Foreign Legion in Algeria when news of a mutiny in India reached him. He joined the 17th Lancers as they embarked for India.

Wood spent 1858 with a column charged with mopping up the large bands of mutineers still roaming the Indian countryside. In between forays he was confined to his bed with fever, sunstroke and exhaustion. Always ready for a challenge, he made a bet with a nabob that he could ride a giraffe. All went well at first, but finally Wood was thrown, and the giraffe’s knee hit him in the chest. The animal’s hind foot then caught him in the face. This knocked him insensible, cut a hole in both cheeks and his lip, and mashed his nose. For the next three days, Wood had to accompany his troop in a stretcher.

Still only 20, Wood raised an irregular cavalry regiment with the lancers and then, in an action in which his party was greatly outnumbered, won the Victoria Cross for rescuing a local merchant.

In 1860, after many other actions, Wood returned to England. He hoped to enter the Staff College but found that it was not possible, since an officer of the 17th Lancers was already there, and the regulations of the day permitted only one officer per regiment. But Wood arranged to transfer into the 73rd Perthshire and then was allowed to enter after all. He completed and passed the course at the Staff College and for the next few years held various positions in the army. Meanwhile, he qualified as a barrister, in case he needed something to fall back on. During that time he met his future wife, Pauline Southwell. Before the wedding, Wood made her swear that she would never stand in the way of his taking active service. She never did.