Early life Le Gendre was born in
Oullins, France. He was the son of
Jean-François Legendre-Héral, a noteworthy painter, sculptor and professor at the
École de Beaux-Arts. Le Gendre was educated at the
Royal College of Reims, but he eventually graduated from the
University of Paris. At the age of 24, he married Clara Victoria Mulock in
Brussels. She was the daughter of a well-known
New York lawyer and soon after their marriage Le Gendre moved to the United States and became a
naturalized citizen.
Civil War military career With the outbreak of the
American Civil War in 1861, Le Gendre helped recruit the
51st New York Volunteer Infantry; he was commissioned a
major of that regiment on October 29, 1861. Le Gendre participated in combat in North Carolina and was present at the
capture of Roanoke Island in 1862. However, he was badly wounded at the
Battle of New Bern, North Carolina, on March 14, 1862. As a result of his injuries, Le Gendre lost his left eye, and his nose was shot away at the bridge. He later received a citation for his courage. Despite his injuries, Le Gendre continued with the Army and was promoted to
lieutenant colonel on September 20, 1862. In 1863, he was attached to the
IX Corps, with which he fought in numerous campaigns. He was promoted to
colonel on March 14, 1863, and assumed command of the 51st Regiment under IX Corps and participated in the siege and capture of
Vicksburg. At the
Battle of the Wilderness in
Virginia on May 6, 1864, while serving under General
Ulysses S. Grant, Le Gendre was again severely injured, this time shot in the face with the bullet taking off his nose and left eye. Although still hospitalized in
Annapolis, Maryland, he helped organize the city's defenses against the last
Confederate raid on the city. He was later transferred to New York, where he helped recruit for the IX Corps. He was honorably discharged on October 4, 1864, and was further given the
brevet rank of
brigadier general on March 13, 1865.
Diplomatic career in China and Taiwan On July 13, 1866, Le Gendre was appointed to be American consul at
Xiamen (then known by its
Hokkien pronunciation "Amoy") in the
Fujian Province of the
Qing Empire. He left New York for
Liverpool in July 1866 and traveled overland through Europe and Asia, eventually arriving in Xiamen in December 1866. As consul, Le Gendre was in control of five of the
Treaty Ports open to foreign commerce in China: Xiamen,
Keelung, Taiwan (modern-day
Tainan),
Tamsui, and
Kaohsiung (then known as "Takao"). He worked to suppress the illegal trade in
coolies,
indentured laborers. Following the
wreck of an American ship Rover on
Taiwan Island on March 12, 1867, and the subsequent massacre of the surviving crew by
Taiwanese aborigines, Le Gendre traveled to
Fuzhou to persuade the
Governor General of Fujian and Zhejiang to put pressure on the Chinese authorities in Taiwan to resolve the issue. Instead of taking action, the governor general of Fujian gave Le Gendre permission to go to Taiwan himself, writing a letter of introduction that asked the
prefect of Taiwan cooperate. Le Gendre commissioned the United States steamer
Ashuelot in order to visit the scene of the wreck and to try to get officials in Taiwan to act. Both this and the
subsequent American punitive expedition under
Rear Adm. Henry Bell were failures; Le Gendre then returned to Taiwan without any reference to his superiors to gather more information. Upon return to south China, Le Gendre managed to persuade the governor general in Fuzhou to send a military force to southern Taiwan. The force, significantly smaller than the 400 to 500 soldiers Le Gendre recommended, was dispatched on July 25, 1867. Le Gendre had requested a
gunboat from Rear Adm. Bell, which was denied but eventually managed to commission a private warship, the
Volunteer. He embarked for Taiwan on September 4, 1867, telling his superiors that he was going purely as a spectator. Le Gendre quickly assumed de facto command of the mission, which entailed a long and difficult march deep into the mountainous interior of southern Taiwan. Le Gendre negotiated an oral agreement guaranteeing the safety of shipwrecked American and European sailors with the chief of the aboriginal tribes in the area. On September 6, 1871, a
Ryukyuan ship
was wrecked off the coast of Taiwan and its surviving crew massacred in a situation similar to that of the
Rover. On February 29, 1872, Le Gendre left for Taiwan to attempt to have his treaty extended to cover Japanese sailors as well. The mission was unsuccessful, and caused a falling out between Le Gendre and the US minister to Beijing.
Career in Japan and Korea In December 1872, while traveling from Xiamen back to the United States, Le Gendre stopped off in Japan and was hired by Japanese
Foreign Minister Soejima Taneomi as an advisor in both foreign affairs and military affairs, becoming the first foreigner employed in a high-ranking post by the Meiji government. However, Le Gendre was unexpectedly imprisoned for a brief time at
Shanghai on the orders of the United States Consul-General for deserting the service, and thus never actually made it to Taiwan. In 1875, the Japanese government awarded him the
Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, which represents the second highest of eight classes associated with the award. This represented the first time that the Order had been conferred on a non-Japanese recipient. He was buried in the
Yanghwajin Foreigners' Cemetery in Seoul. Le Gendre was author of
Progressive Japan: A Study of the Political and Social Needs of the Empire (1878). A large portion of his private papers are now in the possession of the
Library of Congress. Among these are his four-volume
Notes of Travel in Formosa (1874–1875), an intelligence report illustrated with photographs and paintings and published only in 2012 by the
National Museum of Taiwan History.
Family in Japan Never having divorced his American wife, Le Gendre nonetheless married Ito Ikeda in Tokyo sometime in late 1872 or early 1873. Ito Ikeda was the illegitimate daughter of
Matsudaira Yoshinaga, a
daimyō (大名) regarded as one of the "Four Wise Lords of the
Bakumatsu". They had a son and two daughters, only one of whom, Aiko (愛子), survived to adulthood. Their son later became a famous
kabuki (歌舞伎) actor,
Ichimura Uzaemon XV (十五代目 市村羽左衛門), who died in May 1945, of natural causes. Le Gendre's and Ikeda's granddaughter by Aiko,
Seikiya Toshiko (関屋 敏子), was a well-known soprano prior to her
suicide in 1941. == Publications ==