Charles Chaillé-Long

Charles Chaillé-Long (1842–1917) was an American soldier from Maryland, active in East Africa and Egypt. He was the second westerner to visit Lake Victoria and the discoverer of Lake Kyoga.

United States military service
He fought in the Union Army during the American Civil War, taking part in the Battle of Gettysburg. He enlisted as a private, and finished the war with the rank of Captain.

Service in Africa
After the Civil War, about 50 veterans from both sides of the war were asked to serve in Egypt. He took a commission as lieutenant-colonel in the Egyptian Army in 1869, arriving in Egypt in 1870. Serving under Charles Gordon in the southern Sudan, he travelled south to present-day Uganda, signing a treaty with Muteesa I of Buganda. In 1874 he was the second western explorer of Lake Victoria, and the first to discover Lake Kyoga. While on his return journey, he was attacked by the forces of Bunyoro. Further missions of exploration were to the Azande in 1875, and the Jubba River in Somalia in 1876. He wrote a book on his adventures called Central Africa: Naked Truths of Naked People. In 1875, he commanded Egyptian forces in the McKillop expedition, to the Indian Ocean coast.

Post-military service
He resigned his commission in 1877, returned to the United States, and attended Columbia Law School. He graduated Columbia in 1880. Subsequently he was a diplomat in Korea, and writer. He became a lawyer and worked in Alexandria, Egypt.

His 1884 book, The Three Prophets, took a very negative line on Charles Gordon. His comments were later taken up by revisionist writers, notably Lytton Strachey in Eminent Victorians. Critics have attacked Chaillé-Long for a lack of accuracy as an author. He also wrote, among other works, My Life in Four Continents.

He was awarded the Charles P. Daly Medal by the American Geographical Society in 1909., a Cross Medjidieh and a Cross Osmanieh from his service in Egypt, the Cross of Chevalier of The Légion d'honneur (France), and a Gold Medal from the General Assembly of Maryland.

Chaillé-Long died March 29, 1917 in Maryland. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Works

 * Central Africa: Naked Truths of Naked People (1876)
 * The Three Prophets (1884)
 * Les Sources du Nil (1891)
 * L'Égypte et ses provinces perdues (1892)
 * La Corée ou Tschösen (1894)
 * My Life in Four Continents (1912)