Frederick Townsend Ward (Chinese: 華爾; November 29, 1831 – September 22, 1862) was an American sailor and mercenary known for his military service in Imperial China during the Taiping Rebellion.

[5] Ward worked for the infamous "King of the Filibusters", William Walker, in Mexico, where he learned how to recruit, train, and command mercenary troops.

[8] The American government also at the same time chartered the steamer Hong Kong to accompany Ward into the north and to return the remains of Ye Mingchen's for interment in Canton, 13 May 1859.

[9][10] According to a contemporary account written in early 1862, Ward and his brother arrived in Shanghai, China in 1860 for the purpose of trading, perhaps as an extension of their father's New York office.

The Bureau was organized by Xue Huan and Wu Xu, Shanghai governmental officials who took pains to shield explicit imperial association with Western mercenaries and military, and primarily funded by Yang Fang, a prominent Ningbo banker and mercantilist.

This weapon, already forged, was used by Ward against the Taipings, with the backing of local Shanghai ministers and merchants, in a highly charged political atmosphere in which the Manchu Imperial forces had no desire to show their reliance upon Western powers.

By June 1860, Ward had a polyglot force of 100 Westerners, trained in the best small arms (including Colt revolvers) and rifles available for purchase in Shanghai.

However, by mid-July, Ward had recruited additional Westerners and over 80 Filipino "Manilamen", and purchased several artillery pieces, and once again, his forces assaulted Sung-Chiang (松江).

On August 2, 1860, Ward led the Foreign Arms Corps against Chingpu (上海青浦), the next town from Sung-chiang on the approaches to Shanghai, and this time the Taiping were prepared.

As the Corps stormed a garrison wall, Taiping forces lying in ambush waited for the optimum moment and then delivered a withering barrage of close-range musket fire.

Within 10 minutes, the Foreign Arms Corps had suffered 50% casualties, and Ward himself was shot in the left jaw, with an exit wound in the right cheek, scarring him for life and leaving him with a speech impediment.

By this time, the Taiping's best military leader Li Xiucheng (李秀成), called Zhong Wang (忠王) or "The Faithful King", dispatched 20,000 troops downriver to break the siege, sending the Foreign Arms Corps fleeing back to the Songjiang area, where Ward's second-in-command, Henry Andres Burgevine (another American fortune seeker), held the Corps briefly together, but it soon "ceased to function as an organized entity".

Ward left Shanghai (apparently secretly) in late 1860 for further treatment of his facial wound, while the remnants of the Corps remained more or less under the command of Burgevine.

After his return, Ward tenaciously began to recruit and train replacements for the Foreign Arms Corps, offering terms attractive enough to cause desertion among the many British warships in port.

However, perhaps the most authoritative judgment was rendered by Richard J. Smith, who stated: Repeatedly sent into the field without adequate preparation by Ward's frantic sponsors, the poorly trained and ill-disciplined contingent stood virtually no chance of success against Li Xiucheng's seasoned troops.

He soon embarked upon a new scheme, in which he would reform the more reliable elements of the Corps into the nucleus of an effective fighting force, composed primarily of local Chinese.

Where before they had been unwilling to fight for Manchu primacy, they were now constantly threatened and in some cases occupied by Taiping forces that were, despite their "heavenly" origin, ruthless in their treatment of local populations.

By summer 1861, a training camp was established by Xue Huan's "right hand man" Wu Xu (吳煦) at Song Chiang (松江), where Ward set up operations.

[18] He even trained them to respond to western bugle calls and verbal commands, and most strikingly, outfitted them in Western-style utility uniforms, color-coded for branch of arms (infantry or artillery), with Indian Sepoy-style turbans.

Another point of pride was their pay, which was both high and consistent by Chinese standards – a strong recruiting drive that triumphed over most discomfort with unfamiliar uniforms.

Ward, ever hungry for glory and no doubt seeking redress for his facial injury, welcomed the conflict, and was absolutely confident in his troops' ability to defend his Songjiang headquarters, while simultaneously operating as "flying columns" to be directed to strategic areas and Taiping vulnerabilities.

From this moment on, the key Western commanders and politicians would support him, funds for troops would flow relatively freely from Imperial coffers, and his decisions would no longer be second-guessed by his backers in Shanghai.

Further, its presence on the battlefield and example of effective Chinese soldiering served as a "force multiplier" for Imperial Anhui units commanded by Li Hongzhang, between whom and Ward mutual respect grew during joint operations.

Ward himself, outwardly caring little for public adulation, still sought to quench some inner need for further glory, and hoped to participate in an eventual strike against Nanjing, the Taiping capital, but this was not to be.

The Manchu court, suspicious of Ward from the beginning, grew even more concerned that as time passed, he refused to shave his forehead, wear a queue or even appear in his fine Mandarin robes.

These and other comments regarding his ambitions led the court to limit the size of his unit far beneath his potential to recruit for it, and to give Ward far less rein than they would have to a commander with more Confucian leanings.

Sources – Carr, Smith, Spence Ward was mortally wounded in the Battle of Cixi, about 10 miles from Ningbo on September 21, 1862, when he was shot in the abdomen.

Actor Tom Cruise and director John Woo were developing a movie scripted by Carr, but the project was never completed[citation needed].

There are just two U.S. memorials to Ward, both in Salem, Massachusetts: a headstone at an unfilled grave, and a collection of materials detailing his life and times by the Essex Institute.

Ward appears as Fletcher Thorson Wood in the novel Yang Shen by James Lande, which relates the tale of the first three years of the Ever Victorious Army, from its beginning as the Foreign Rifles in 1860 through September 1862.