Another of the soldiers that entered service during the Crimean War, and went on to have a great impact on the British Army, was Evelyn Wood, He was the son of a clergyman, like many officers, in 1838. His mother was a strong woman who passed on her great drive to her children. Evelyn had eight other siblings. Several of his sisters became well known in England. One of them became a well-known novelist who wrote under her married name of Anna Steele. She had fled her husband after only one week of marriage, still a virgin because she found out that her husband wanted to have sex with her. Evelyn spent many years defending her from her estranged husband, once even getting sued for assault by him when Evelyn struck him while protecting her from his advances.

Evelyn was taken into the Navy at the age of fourteen. Two years later as a young midshipman, he was on his way to the Crimea as his family wanted to have a member involved in the war. While there he was injured and soon sent home to get well. While at home he decided for some reason that he wanted to be in the cavalry. While still healing from his wounds, a severely broken arm, (he himself pulled nine splinters of bone from his arm), he reported to his regiment. There he found out that the cost of joining the cavalry was high. He went on to get himself in debt, but remained with his regiments for most of his life. He began hunting before his arm healed and reopened the wound twice, and soon became known as the most accident-and illness-prone man in the army. He was sent back to the Crimea and there came down with illness and was sent home again.

After recovering, he was sent to India, just in time for the Mutiny, While there, in between fighting the sepoys, he suffered from, sunstroke, low fever, facial neuralgia, indigestion and face-ache. He then went on to be attacked by a tiger, fell off a giraffe, putting holes in both his cheeks and mashing his nose, then went on to burn a hole in a cheek with medicine for a toothache, and again suffering with face-ache and deafness. He also suffered from severe intestinal complaints and indigestion. He then galloped his horse into a tree, breaking his collarbone. This all happened in little over a year while in India.

Wood went on to become one of the Wolseley gang, and served with Garnet in several campaigns. Wolseley, even though he chose him for his talents, never liked Wood. He thought him vain and conceited, but also realized that he had some abilities. During this time, as usual, Wood was sick most of the time and got wounded several times. During the attempt to rescue Gordon at Khartoum, Wood was Wolseley�s chief of staff, but he had to let him go as by this time Wood suffered so much from deafness that Garnet had to shout to be heard. It was soon that he was so used to shouting at Wood that he started shouting at his whole staff. After the affair Wolseley didn�t mention Wood in his dispatches. But the Queen took notice of Wood. Victoria never liked Wolseley but she had a special fondness for Evelyn. This would be a source of friction between Wolseley and Wood for years to come.

After this, Wood, sick as usual, was posted in England. He was given the best post an officer could have in England, the command of the training center at Aldershot. There he set about to reform the army with a vengeance. He got better food for patients in the army hospital, improved musket training, got rid of useless sentry duty and started an army cooking school. He also got the army to issue soldiers an extra shirt and to end nightly roll calls. He also experimented with teaching soldiers to ride bikes and got the rails to offer reduced fares for soldiers. He went on to become adjutant-general of the British Army under Wolseley. He went on to push for reform of the hospitals, probably because he spent most of his time in them. He was promoted to Field Marshal in 1903 and ended his career in 1904 and retied to his estates to hunt for the next 15 years before he died.