Field Marshal Sir Henry Evelyn Wood, (9 February 1838 – 2 December 1919) was a British Army officer. After an early career in the Royal Navy, Wood joined the British Army in 1855. He served in several major conflicts including the Indian Mutiny where, as a lieutenant, he was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest award for valour in the face of the enemy that is awarded to British and Imperial forces, for rescuing a local merchant from a band of robbers who had taken their captive into the jungle, where they intended to hang him. Wood further served as a commander in several other conflicts, notably the Third Anglo-Ashanti War, the Anglo-Zulu War, the First Boer War and the Mahdist War. His service in Egypt led to his appointment as Sirdar where he reorganised the Egyptian Army. He returned to Britain to serve as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Aldershot Command from 1889, as Quartermaster-General to the Forces from 1893 and as Adjutant General from 1897. His last appointment was as commander of 2nd Army Corps (later renamed Southern Command) from 1901 to 1904. Ancestry and early life Wood was born at Cressing near Braintree, Essex as the fifth and youngest son of the Reverend Sir John Page Wood, 2nd Baronet (1796–1866), a clergyman, and Emma Caroline Michell, sister of Charles Collier Michell and Admiral Frederick Thomas Michell, and daughter of Admiral Sampson Michell. Wood was an elder brother of Katherine Parnell (Kitty O'Shea). Sir Matthew Wood, 1st Baronet, was his grandfather and Lord Chancellor William Wood, 1st Baron Hatherley was an uncle. His maternal grandfather (Sampson Mitchell) had been an admiral in the Portuguese navy. One of his mother's brothers was a British admiral, another rose to be Surveyor-General of Cape Colony. Wood was educated at Marlborough Grammar School (1847–9) and Marlborough College (1849–52), but ran away after an unjust beating. Early military career Crimean War: from sailor to soldier 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. He became a midshipman on 15 April 1852. Wood served in the Crimean War during the siege of Sebastopol, in Captain William Peel's 1,400 strong naval brigade, whose job was to man some guns on a ridge opposite Sebastopol. He was at Inkerman and aged 16, was Peel's aide de