NAM.2009-02-110-374

Letter from Gen Sir Lintorn Simmons to Sir John Cowell, Malta, 12 Feb 1885. Death of Gordon, ‘Alas what a number of human lives have been offered as a sacrifice to the idol of the GOM’. ‘When I say goodbye to Wolseley I startled him by saying I suppose we should never again see our friend Gordon. He almost jumped from his chair and asked what I meant. I said ... “that unless some steps were taken immediately .. he would be sacrificed.”’ From the archive of Maj Gen Sir John Cowell, 1854-1893. Cowell served with the Royal Engineers in the Baltic in 1854 and in the Crimea in 1855. As Master of the Queen’s Household from 1866 until his death in 1894, Cowell acted as military gatekeeper to Queen Victoria and was the man to whom Victorian generals wrote if they wished their views to be communicated to the monarch. Associated with the Crimean War (1854-1856), 1st Sudan War (1884-1885), the Egyptian War (1882), the Sekukuni Campaign (1878-1879) and the 2nd Afghan War (1878-1881).