Irvin McDowell
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Irvin McDowell (October 15, 1818 – May 4, 1885) was an American military officer, famous for his participation in the American Civil War.
Born in Columbus, Ohio, McDowell initially attended the College de Troyes in France, then graduated from U.S. Military Academy in 1838. He was commissioned a second lieutenant and posted to the 1st U.S. Artillery. He was a tactics instructor at West Point for a while, before being aide-de-camp to General John E. Wool during the Mexican War. He was brevetted captain at Buena Vista. After the war, he served in the Adjutant General's department and received a brevet promotion to major in 1856.
McDowell was promoted to brigadier general on May 14, 1861, and given command of the Army of Northeastern Virginia, despite never having commanded troops in combat. The promotion was due in large part to the influence of his mentor, Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase. Although McDowell knew that his troops were inexperienced and unready, pressure from the Washington politicians forced him to launch a premature offensive against Confederate forces in northern Virginia. His strategy during the First Battle of Bull Run was imaginative but ambitiously complex, and his troops were not experienced enough to carry it out effectively, resulting in an embarrassing rout.
After the defeat at Bull Run, Major General George B. McClellan was placed in command of the new Union army in Virginia, the Army of the Potomac. McDowell commanded a division in the new army, but McClellan soon reorganized his command and McDowell was given I Corps the following spring. His corps stayed behind to defend Washington, and was eventually supposed to march to McClellan's support while the latter fought in the Peninsula Campaign; however, the nervous politicians who feared that General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's Valley Campaign would eventually attack Washington kept McDowell's 40,000 soldiers behind.
Eventually, the three independent commands of Generals McDowell, John C. Frémont, and Nathaniel P. Banks were combined into Major General John Pope's Army of Virginia and McDowell led the III Corps of that army. Because of his actions at Cedar Mountain, McDowell was eventually brevetted major general of Regulars in 1865; however, he was blamed for the subsequent disaster at Second Bull Run. He escaped culpability by testifying against Major General Fitz-John Porter, whom General McClellan court-martialed for the defeats of the Peninsula Campaign. (In 1879, when Porter's conviction was overturned, McDowell's reputation was soiled by accusations of perjury in his self-serving testimony.) Despite his formal escape, McDowell spent the following two years in effective exile from the leadership of the Army.
In July of 1864, McDowell was given command of the Department of the Pacific. He later commanded the Department of California, the Fourth Military District (the military government for Arkansas and Louisiana during Reconstruction), and the Department of the West. He was promoted to permanent major general of Regulars in 1872, and retired from the U.S. Army in 1882. He served as Park Commissioner of San Francisco, California, before dying in 1885. He is buried in San Francisco National Cemetery in the Presidio of San Francisco.
References
- Eicher, John H., & Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
- Warner, Ezra J., Generals in Blue, Louisiana State University Press, 1964, ISBN 0-8071-0882-7.