Frederick Townsend Ward - Filibustering

Filibustering

Aside from working as a sailor during the 1850s, Ward found employment, as a “filibuster”. “Filibustering” is “raising private mercenary armies and leading them into other countries to advance either schemes or those of wealthy sponsors”. (Carr, 58). Ward worked for the infamous “King of the Filibusters”, William Walker, in Mexico, where he learned how to recruit, train, and command mercenary troops.

Ward also learned to avoid some of Walker's practices and behaviors. Walker has a reputation for being “excessively vain, weak minded and ambitious…his weakness renders him cruel…” (Carr 59). During Ward's later time in China, he displayed respect and concern for the Western and Chinese troops under his command, whom he referred to as “my people”.

Ward learned about practical warfare during his “filibusteresque” experience in 1854 and when he served as a lieutenant with the French Army in the Crimean War. He learned about weapons, tactics, using riflemen in mobile platoons rather than in fixed firing lines and siege techniques (Carr 65, Smith 28). Ward also learned that the frontal assault was of limited value against disciplined long range firepower, and he gained experience under fire. He did not serve throughout the entire war, because he was 'allowed' to resign after being insubordinate to a superior officer.

In 1857, Ward sought work as a mercenary, but when he didn't secure such work, he served as the first mate on a coastal steamship in dangerous waters. He worked as a shipping agent in his father's New York City office alongside his brother in 1859.

At the end of the 1850s, Ward's life bears some similarity to U.S. Grant's life. Both were former soldiers with uncertain prospects, who worked in offices for their fathers, with their brothers. It is unlikely that they knew each other. However, U.S. Grant stated that he did not anticipate his role in the Civil War, while Ward was saving money, and planning military activity, this time for Imperial China.