Book Review: Searching for Irvin McDowell: The Civil War’s Forgotten General

Searching for Irvin McDowell: The Civil War’s Forgotten General. By Frank P. Simione, Jr. & Gene Schmiel. El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2023. Softcover, 219 pp. $22.95.

Reviewed by Kevin C. Donovan

The question raised by this book is whether the search is worth the candle? Most think they already know Irvin McDowell; he lost First Bull Run, then faded into well-deserved obscurity, a descent only interrupted by an irony-tinged participation in a second defeat on the same plains of Manassas while serving under fellow bungler John Pope. What else is there to know? Frank P. Simione, Jr. and Gene Schmiel provide answers in this first book-length biography of McDowell.

Acknowledging the paucity of sources (McDowell left no memoirs and few personal papers) the authors nevertheless seek to avoid the standard treatments of McDowell as a victim of outside actions (James McPherson called him “a hard-luck general for whom nothing went right”)[1] and reveal “how McDowell himself and his personality” determined his fate (ix). The authors piece together others’ observations of their subject, including McDowell’s contemporaries, with facts supplied by official records, then offer their own anaylsis.

One theme of the book is McDowell’s perceived intelligence, which the authors use to explain McDowell’s selection to the command that Robert E. Lee had declined. They stress McDowell’s intellectual prowess: education in France, West Point entry at only age 15, Military Academy professor by 23. As one “expected to rise to the top” (13), McDowell enjoyed plum staff assignments, culminating with Winfield Scott. Moreover, and further showing he had been marked for advancement, McDowell was sent to Europe to study modern military arts. Back with Scott in Washington at war’s outbreak, McDowell was “a natural choice” for command (197). The final piece of the selection puzzle was Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, who respected McDowell’s “military acumen” (19), especially after McDowell authored an army organization plan for Chase.

From this career apex, the authors skillfully detail McDowell’s failures, including at both Battles of Bull Run. Their theme is McDowell as gifted planner—as would befit an intellectual staff careerist—with flashes of insight, but always failing at the moment of crisis. Thus, McDowell’s flanking plan at First Bull Run actually put the Union army on the cusp of victory. It was McDowell who, relying on his European study, advised Lincoln to adopt a corps organization for more effective military action, while presciently urging government control of the railroads. Later, McDowell would strongly (and correctly) protest that sending his corps towards the Shenandoah Valley rather than to McClellan and Richmond was a strategic blunder. At Second Bull Run, McDowell on his own initiative hatched a plan to block James Longstreet from reinforcing Stonewall Jackson.

But then the failures. At First Bull Run McDowell inexplicably halted his victorious troops, allowing the Confederates time to regroup. Then he recklessly ordered two unsupported batteries forward, leading to disaster. At Second Bull Run, he failed to press home his plan to block Longstreet. Then McDowell suddenly left his corps as night was approaching because he felt he had to talk to Pope, a decision with dire consequences. Finally, on the battle’s second day, McDowell ordered a division from a key defensive position, leading to Pope’s rout.

True to their word, Simione and Schmiel posit a “personality” based theory for McDowell’s failures. They argue that “on occasion on the battlefield he lost his composure” (xiv), resulting in “impulsiveness [which] sometimes led him to act without sufficient forethought” (xiv). Such “impulsivity” led him to abandon his corps without ensuring adequate command in his absence (118, 120). McDowell moved that division because he “panicked,” “lost his composure and [acted] impulsively” (140). In sum, McDowell’s “emotions” and “excitability” repeatedly caused him to lose “focus,” and overrode both his judgment and objective knowledge of battlefield conditions (140, 151, 197).

Three court proceedings arising from Second Bull Run—Fitz John Porter’s court martial, McDowell’s own court of inquiry, and the Schofield Board’s re-examination of Porter’s case—are used to good effect to delve deeper into McDowell’s character. The cases forced McDowell to relive the battle while defending his own actions. In fighting what he saw as an effort to make him the “alternative scapegoat” (170), McDowell made himself the primary witness against Porter. McDowell’s approach to testifying, however, was “to obfuscate or avoid and evade,” and if pressed, repeatedly claim memory loss or give “vague, rambling, contradictory, or even incredible responses” (171). He also displayed strong emotion, testifying that “This whole campaign has been a nightmare for me…I shut it out of my mind as well as I could” (189). The authors, now having a plethora of documentary evidence, not only bring to light McDowell’s central role in the Porter controversy but show McDowell as a man in agony who would not admit his own mistakes.

The authors seem sympathetic to McDowell (“McDowell did not have a malicious bone in his body” (197)). Despite arraying a powerful host of reasons supporting a conclusion that McDowell committed perjury and admitting that “he turned to prevarication to avoid admitting error” (198), they leave open the possibility that he really did forget what had happened perhaps because, as another author has suggested, he wanted to.[2]

This book is valuable because it starts to fill what had been a void and may spark further analysis into Irvin McDowell’s role in the Civil War. It also reveals an intelligent man temperamentally unsuited to battle, who nevertheless might have served an important role, if only he had been properly utilized as a strategic planner rather than as a combat commander, but ultimately became an agonized, almost pathetic, forgotten figure who after the war called himself a “might have been” (196).

[1] James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, (Oxford University Press: New York, 1988), 335.

[2] William Marvel, Radical Sacrifice: The Rise and Ruin of Fitz John Porter (University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 2021), 334.

Kevin C. Donovan, Esq., a retired lawyer, now focuses on Civil War research and writing, including on law-related topics such as “How the Civil War Continues to Affect the Law,” published in Litigation, The Journal of the Section of Litigation, of the American Bar Association.  His inaugural ECW blog publication, “A Tale of Two Tombstones,” appeared December 9, 2022 and was ECW’s most popular post of the year on social media.