By Gardner's own accounts he was born in
Wisconsin to a Scottish father and Anglo-Spanish mother.
Baron von Hügel met Gardner in 1835 and claimed he was Irish. Whatever the case, evidence for Gardner's origins is uncertain. Gardner went to
Ireland in about 1809. He returned to America in 1812, but finding his father dead sailed for Europe and never went back to America. From Europe he travelled to
Astrakhan in the
Russian Empire where his brother was working. Upon his brother's death in 1817 Gardner tried to secure a position in the
Russian Army. When that failed he left Russia and spent the next 13 years wandering through
Central Asia. In 1823 he was captured in
Afghanistan by Habib Ullah Khan, the nephew of
Dost Mohammed Khan. Habib Ullah was fighting his uncle for the throne of
Kabul, and he recruited Gardner to his cause as the commander of 180 horsemen. After an attack on a pilgrim caravan Gardner married one of the captives, a native woman, and went to live in a fort near
Parwan where a son was born. When Habib Ullah was defeated in 1826, Gardner's wife and his baby boy were murdered by Dost Mahommed's forces. Later that year Gardner fled north with a few companions and near the
River Oxus his party was attacked by fifty horsemen: they lost eight out of their thirteen men and the survivors were all wounded but able to escape. Their route now lay towards
Badakhshan and the valley of the
Kokcha; the Oxus was finally crossed opposite the
Shakhdara to reach the valley of
Shignan. From this point his narrative is fragmentary and difficult to understand, large parts being highly improbable or impossible. He claimed to have reached
Yarkand on 24 September but the year is uncertain, either 1827, 1828 or 1829 are possible, certainly he was there by 1830. He returned to Afghanistan, and visited
Kafiristan, possibly the first westerner to do so. He was later promoted to the rank of colonel by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. He remained in the
Sikh Army after Ranjit Singh's death in 1839, until the
First Anglo-Sikh war. Gardner was involved in numerous gun and sword fights during his career. He was described as being six-foot, with a long beard, an all around warrior and fighter. Gardner was known to have saved the
City of Lahore in 1841 when his comrades were killed or fled and he fired the guns that killed 300 enemies in the courtyard of
Hazuri Bagh. He was present when
Dhian Singh burst into the chambers of Maharaja
Kharak Singh and murdered his favorite advisor. Gardner remained in the service of the Maharajas as they came and went, and witnessed the fall of the Punjab as a
sovereign kingdom. This he vividly described in his book on the Fall of the Sikh Empire. He is described as continuing to suffer the effects of fourteen wounds in later life. ==Works==