Field Marshal Sir Henry Evelyn Wood, VC, GCB, GCMG, DL (9 February 1838 – 2 December 1919) was a British Army officer.

[2] Like his near contemporary John French, Wood began his career in the Royal Navy, serving under his uncle Captain Frederick Mitchell on HMS Queen, but vertigo stopped him going aloft.

[3] Invalided home with a letter of recommendation from Lord Raglan, written five days before the latter's death, Wood left the Royal Navy to join the British Army, becoming a cornet (without purchase) in the 13th Light Dragoons on 7 September 1855[6] and reporting to their depot with his arm still in a sling.

[1] On 19 October 1858 during an action at Sindwaho while in command of a troop of light cavalry, twenty-year-old Lieutenant Wood attacked a body of rebels, whom he routed almost single-handedly.

[1] With the help of a daffadar and a sowar of Beatson's Horse, he rescued a local Potail (headman of a village) from a band of robbers who had taken their captive into the jungle, where they had intended to hang him.

[10] His citation read: For having, on the 19th of October, 1858, during Action at Sindwaho, when in command of a Troop of the 3rd Light Cavalry, attacked with much gallantry, almost single handed, a body of Rebels who had made a stand, whom he routed.

Also, for having subsequently, near Siudhora, gallantly advanced with a Duffadar and Sowar of Beatson's Horse, and rescued from a band of robbers, a Potail, Chemmum Singh, whom they had captured and carried off to the Jungles, where they intended to hang him.

[14] In Dublin, from January 1865 to March 1866 he was aide-de-camp to General William Napier, whom he knew from India;[1] the damp climate brought on a recurrence of fever and ear trouble.

He helped recruit a regiment from among the coastal African tribes, although he wrote of the Fantis that "it would be difficult to imagine a more cowardly, useless lot of men".

[1] Wood was defeated at Hlobane on 28 March 1879, where he had his horse shot from under him[12] and his close friend and chief staff officer Ronald Campbell was killed.

[1] Between March and July 1880 Wood and his wife were obliged by the Queen to escort the former Empress Eugenie to see the spot where her son, the Prince Imperial, had been killed while fighting with the British Army in the Zulu War, calling at St Helena (where Napoleon I had died) on the way back.

[1] With the First Boer War reaching a crescendo, he was once again sent back to South Africa in January 1881, initially as a "staff colonel" to Sir George Colley, Governor and Commander-in-Chief in Natal, who was his junior on the Army list.

[40] Wood wrote to his wife that the treaty would make him "the best abused man in England for a time"[40] but thought it his duty to obey the government's orders.

[40] In April 1881 he was appointed to a commission of inquiry into all matters relating to the future settlement of the Transvaal Territory,[41] and put in a dissenting opinion about the boundaries.

He is as cunning as a first class female diplomatist … (but has not) real sound judgement…… intrigues with newspaper correspondents … he has not the brains nor the disposition nor the coolness nor the firmness of purpose to enable him to take command in any war … a very second rate general … whose two most remarkable traits (a)re extreme vanity & unbounded self-seeking" although a letter to his wife (complaining that Wood was "a very puzzle-headed fellow", wanting in method and vain) suggests that Wolseley still bore Wood a grudge about the peace after Majuba Hill.

[55] Fanshawe (who commanded V Corps during World War I), later became Wood's son-in-law, marrying his elder daughter Anna Pauline Mary on 25 July 1894.

He arranged Haig's posting to the 1898 Sudan War – with orders to write privately to him reporting on Kitchener, the general officer commanding, and on his expedition's progress.

The concept of mounted infantry fell back into disfavour in the Edwardian period as French and Haig, pure cavalrymen, rose to the top of the Army.

"[64] Wolseley informed him that his role in the 1881 Peace made it impossible for him to be given a field command in the Second Boer War, despite his offer to serve under Buller, his junior.

Wood testified to the Royal Commission and gave information, much of it critical of Wolseley, to Leopold Amery for his Times History of the War in South Africa.

[1] Wood's mother was left short of money after 1866 when her husband died and, already 66 years old, she went on to write fourteen novels, translating Victor Hugo's L’Homme qui Rit into English.

[1] During the Indian Mutiny another sister, Maria Chambers, conveyed her children to safety through mutineer-controlled country carrying a phial of poison for each child.

He was convinced that hunting was of great value in training officers by encouraging horsemanship and developing an eye for terrain and for rapid decision-making in dangerous situations.

He was often injured, on one occasion while at Staff College falling on the crown of his head so badly that his neck swelled as if he were suffering from a large double goitre.

His brother-in-law later paid him enough of a salary to keep horses, grooms, hounds and servants, supposedly for supervising estates in Ireland, although it is unclear that he ever devoted much time to this task.

Her husband, Captain William O'Shea (18th Hussars), an Irish MP, at this point also contested the will, claiming it contravened his marriage contract and also sued for divorce.

[76] As a qualified barrister since 1874, he had become Honorary Colonel of the 14th Middlesex (Inns of Court) Rifle Volunteer Corps in November 1899 and supported its incorporation as an officer training unit in the new Territorial Force in 1908.

"[80] Beginning as a courageous young officer and later a successful commander in colonial wars, Evelyn Wood understood the importance of progress and modern technology and lived long enough to see cavalry become almost obsolete.

[81] In January 1914 he resigned as Chairman of the County Territorial Association in order to express his support for Field Marshal Roberts' campaign for conscription.

[1] In his final years he wrote Our Fighting Services (1916) and Winnowed Memories (1917) which one historian described as "stuffed with adulatory letters he had received, extracts of speeches he had given and anecdotes in which his wisdom or cleverness figured".