Henry Andres Burgevine was an American adventurer. He is noted for his military victories for Imperial China during the Taiping Rebellion.
Background
Henry Andres Burgevine was the second of four children born to General Andrea and Julia (Gillette) Burgevine. His father had been one of Napoleon's officers who, subsequent to the Peninsular campaign, served with the king of Spain, and was granted an extensive tract of land in Florida on which he spent many years surveying and vainly trying to secure recognition of the claim. His headquarters were at New Bern, North Carolina, in the French colony there. For a few months in 1836 he was a professor of modern languages at Chapel Hill, and possibly Henry was born there.
Education
The latter was educated in the public schools, but when still young went forth to adventure.
Career
After some service in the Crimea he wandered about and eventually appeared on the China coast. When, in 1860, Frederick Townsend Ward was recruiting a foreign company to recapture Sungkiang from the Taiping rebels he enrolled Burgevine as an officer. The young leader showed dash and gallantry in a fruitless attack on Tsingpu, leading a charge after Ward was wounded.
In the "Ever Victorious Army" which emerged from this nondescript company, Burgevine was third in command. Ward's untimely death in September 1862 precipitated a British-American rivalry for the command of the army which now numbered about 4, 000.
Li Hung Chang, Governor of Kiangsu, despite misgivings regarding Burgevine's character and aims, awarded him the post, deferring to the representations of the American minister, Anson Burlingame, whom the British authorities eventually supported. The governor soon had cause to rue his compliance.
Early in November, the Taiping forces in full strength challenged their besiegers outside Nanking. The imperialist cause stood in dire peril. His superior requested Li Hung Chang to send General Ch'en to the rescue, but, owing to complications, Burgevine was offered instead, --an offer reluctantly accepted.
To the governor's intense chagrin Burgevine, advancing various excuses, failed to move until at last the danger disappeared. Insult was added to injury when, early in January, December payments being overdue, Burgevine quelled an incipient mutiny in Sungkiang by promising to make payments within a limited time and proceeded to fulfil the promise by leading an armed guard to the home of the paymaster in Shanghai, there to seize forty thousand taels, wounding an official slightly in the melee. Li Hung Chang was fairly beside himself with anger, and would have executed the offender but for the latter's extraterritorial status. Dismissal and refusal to reinstate naturally followed, although Burgevine went to Peking and secured powerful support, including that of Burlingame.
Undaunted by his failure, Burgevine enrolled a hundred or more kindred spirits whom he led to join the insurgents in Soochow. Becoming dissatisfied there, he made overtures in October to come over with his entire following to Charles George Gordon, now in command of the "Ever Victorious Army. " Li Hung Chang made no objections, but warned Gordon not to trust the man. Most of the company actually changed sides during a battle, but Burgevine himself was too closely watched. Gordon thereupon negotiated for his release --the rebels apparently happy to be rid of him--and he was delivered to the United States consul at Shanghai, charged with treason.
Eventually he was released on promising to leave China permanently. There was general relief at his departure. Nevertheless, shortly before the fall of Nanking, he was again in China attempting to join the insurgents, but was hindered by imperialist vigilance. In May 1865 he appeared in Fukien on his way to join the last unconquered Taiping chief. Being recognized by a foreign military instructor attached to the imperialists, he was arrested, together with a British companion.
Once more Li Hung Chang sought to secure his execution, chafing at treaty restrictions that precluded direct action. He did not show undue grief when news came that the small boat conveying the prisoners had capsized, drowning them both. Shanghai foreigners suspected foul play, but it could not be proved and is improbable.
In 1865 he drowned along with 10 Qing police in Xiamen's sea on the way to Shanghai, China, although some historians believed that Burgevine was murdered on Li Hongzhang's orders.
Achievements
In the early stages of the Taiping Rebellion Burgevine sided with the Qing Army, serving as the deputy commander of Ever Victorious Army, and succeeding the commander, Frederick Townsend Ward to command the Ever Victorious Army after Ward's death. In 1862 the emperor awarded Burgevin a fourth degree and later a second degree mandarinship for his accomplishments against the Taipings.
Connections
Burgevin had married a Chinese courtesan in 1862. There is no record of offspring.