Real Soldiers of Fortune
- Pages
- about 165
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
ANY sunny afternoon, on Fifth Avenue, or at night in the table d’hote
restaurants of University Place, you may meet the soldier of fortune who
of all his brothers in arms now living is the most remarkable. You may
have noticed him; a stiffly erect, distinguished-looking man, with gray
hair, an imperial of the fashion of Louis Napoleon, fierce blue eyes,
and across his forehead a sabre cut.
This is Henry Ronald Douglas MacIver, for some time in India an ensign
in the Sepoy mutiny; in Italy, lieutenant under Garibaldi; in Spain,
captain under Don Carlos; in our Civil War, major in the Confederate
army; in Mexico, lieutenant-colonel under the Emperor Maximilian;
colonel under Napoleon III, inspector of cavalry for the Khedive of
Egypt, and chief of cavalry and general of brigade of the army of King
Milan of Servia. These are only a few of his military titles. In 1884
was published a book giving the story of his life up to that year. It
was called “Under Fourteen Flags.” If to-day General MacIver were to
reprint the book, it would be called “Under Eighteen Flags.”
MacIver was born on Christmas Day, 1841, at sea, a league off the shore
of Virginia. His mother was Miss Anna Douglas of that State; Ronald
MacIver, his father, was a Scot, a Rossshire gentleman, a younger son of
the chief of the Clan MacIver. Until he was ten years old young MacIver
played in Virginia at the home of his father. Then, in order that he
might be educated, he was shipped to Edinburgh to an uncle, General
Donald Graham. After five years his uncle obtained for him a commission
as ensign in the Honorable East India Company, and at sixteen, when
other boys are preparing for college, MacIver was in the Indian Mutiny,
fighting, not for a flag, nor a country, but as one fights a wild
animal, for his life. He was wounded in the arm, and, with a sword, cut
over the head.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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