the Napoleonic wars. It is he who laid the foundations upon which were built up, both the expeditionary force which saved France in 1914, and the great national army which brought victory to the Allies in 1918.
A whole-length portrait of Lord Wolseley standing by his charger, painted by Albert Besnard in 1880, was presented to the National Portrait Gallery by Lady Wolseley in 1917; a bronze bust by Sir J. E. Boehm, modelled in 1883, was also given to the Gallery by Lady Wolseley in 1919. An equestrian statue for Trafalgar Square was designed by Sir W. Goscombe John in 1918.
[Viscount Wolseley, The Story of a Soldier's Life, 2 vols., 1903, and Narrative of the War with China, 1862; C. R. Low, A Memoir of Lieutenant-General Sir Garnet Wolseley, 2 vols., 1878; G. L. Huyshe, The Red River Expedition, 1871; Sir Henry Brackenbury, Narrative of the Ashantee War, 2 vols., 1874; J. F. Maurice, The Military History of the Campaign of 1882 in Egypt, 1888; H. E. Colvile, The History of the Sudan Campaign, 2 parts, 1890; Sir F. Maurice and Sir George Arthur, The Life of Lord Wolseley, 1924.]
WOOD, Sir HENRY EVELYN (1838–1919), field-marshal, the youngest son of the Rev. Sir John Page Wood, second baronet, rector of St. Peter's, Cornhill, London, and vicar of Cressing, Essex, by his wife, Caroline, youngest daughter of Admiral Sampson Michell, of Croft West, Cornwall, was born at Cressing 9 February 1838. He was sent to Marlborough College, and entered the royal navy as a midshipman in 1852. In 1854 he was in the Queen in the Black Sea during the Crimean War. In that war he served ashore with the naval brigade, took part in the battle of Inkermann, was in the trenches before Sebastopol, and was wounded in the assault on the Redan (18 June 1855) while acting as aide-de-camp to Captain Peel, commander of the brigade. Finding service ashore more to his taste, Wood applied to be transferred to the army and received a commission as cornet in the 13th Light Dragoons. During the Crimean War he was twice mentioned in dispatches, and on its conclusion he received the medal with two clasps, became a knight of the legion of honour and a member of the 5th class of the Medjidie, and obtained the Turkish medal—not a bad beginning for a youth of seventeen.
In 1857 Wood transferred to the 17th Lancers, and in the following year went with his regiment to India to take part in the suppression of the Mutiny. From May 1858 until October 1860 he was employed in the operations in central India, chiefly with a regiment of native cavalry which he raised and commanded. He was mentioned in dispatches for great gallantry in the action of Sindwaha (19 October 1858) and received the V.C. for routing, with ten men, a party of eighty rebels at Sindhara (29 December 1859). On becoming a captain in the 17th Lancers (April 1861) he was, after some delay, made brevet major (August 1862) for his services during the Mutiny. In 1862 he passed the entrance examination for the Staff College, but, as another officer of the 17th Lancers had passed above him and only one officer at a time could be at the college from one cavalry regiment, he transferred in October 1862 to the 73rd Foot. On passing out of the Staff College (1864) he obtained a succession of staff appointments. In 1867 he married the Hon. Mary Paulina Anne Southwell, a sister of the fourth Viscount Southwell; there were three sons and three daughters of the marriage. In 1871 Wood purchased a majority in the 90th Light Infantry, being one of the last officers to obtain promotion in this way, and in January 1873 he was promoted brevet lieutenant-colonel in consequence of his seniority as a brevet major. A few months later, when the crimes of Koffee, king of Ashanti, demanded punishment, it was decided to send an expedition under Sir Garnet (afterwards Viscount) Wolseley [q.v.] to the Gold Coast. Wolseley, in his search for officers of ability and energy, had come across Wood, and took him to Ashanti as special service officer. Wolseley desired to expose British troops for as short a time as possible to the fevers of the West coast, and the preliminary work of the campaign fell to the native levies, of whom Wood raised and commanded a regiment. At Amoaful, the chief action in the campaign, he commanded the right attack and was slightly wounded (January 1874); he was also present at the capture of the Ashanti capital, Kumassi. On the conclusion of the campaign he received the C.B. and was promoted brevet colonel. After three years on the staff at Aldershot, he went (1878) with his regiment to South Africa, where he was to make his name, already known in the army, familiar to the general public.
At that time the conflicting interests of Briton, Boer, and native had caused general unrest throughout South Africa. Wood went out with Lieutenant-General Thesiger, afterwards second Baron Chelmsford [q.v.], and their first task was the
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