Irvin McDowell
Irvin McDowell | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Service/ | United States Army |
| Years of service | 1838–82 |
| Rank | Major General |
| Commands | Army of Northeastern Virginia I Corps, Army of the Potomac III Corps, Army of Virginia |
| Battles/wars | Mexican-American War American Civil War |
| Other work | Park Commissioner, San Francisco |
Irvin McDowell (October 15, 1818 – May 10, 1885) was a career American army officer, famous for his defeat during the First Battle of Bull Run, the first large-scale battle of the American Civil War.
Early life
McDowell was born in Columbus, Ohio. He initially attended the College de Troyes in France before graduating from West Point in 1838, where one of his classmates was P.G.T. Beauregard, his future adversary at First Bull Run. He was commissioned a second lieutenant and posted to the 1st U.S. Artillery. McDowell served as a tactics instructor at West Point, before becoming aide-de-camp to General John E. Wool during the Mexican-American War. He was brevetted captain at Buena Vista and served in the Adjutant General's department after the war. In 1856, he was promoted to major in the Adjutant General's department.
Civil War
McDowell was promoted to brigadier general in the regular army on May 14, 1861, and given command of the Army of Northeastern Virginia, despite never having commanded troops in combat. The promotion was partly because of 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, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan was placed in command of the new Union Army defending Washington, 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 Maj. Gen. 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 in the regular army in 1865; however, he was blamed for the subsequent disaster at Second Bull Run. He escaped culpability by testifying against Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter, whom Pope court-martialed for alleged insubordination in that battle. Despite his formal escape, McDowell spent the following two years in effective exile from the leadership of the Army.
Later service and postbellum career
In July 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 in the regular army in 1872. In 1879, when a Board of Review commissioned by President Rutherford B. Hayes issued its report recommending a pardon for Fitz John Porter, it attributed much of the loss of the Second Battle of Bull Run to McDowell. In the report he was depicted as indecisive, uncommunicative, and inept, repeatedly failing to answer Porter's requests for information, failing to forward intelligence of Longstreet's positioning to Pope, and neglecting to take command of the left wing of the Union Army as was his duty under the Articles of War.
He retired from the U.S. Army in 1882 and 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.
See also
References
- Eicher, John H., and 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 0-8071-0822-7.