Irvin McDowell

Irvin McDowell was a career United States Army officer who commanded the principal Union field army in the first months of the American Civil War. Under political pressure to advance before his troops were fully trained, he led the army to defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861.

McDowell later commanded corps and departmental forces in Virginia and took part in the campaign that ended in the Second Battle of Bull Run. He was removed from field command after that defeat but was cleared by a court of inquiry and continued a long post-war army career.

Hourly History’s First Battle of Bull Run places Irvin McDowell in command of the inexperienced Union army whose initially promising advance at Manassas collapsed into retreat on 21 July 1861, ending northern expectations of a quick war. Bernard Cornwell’s Rebel approaches the same battle from the ranks of the fictional Faulconer Legion, so McDowell’s offensive supplies the larger operational framework within which Nathaniel Starbuck and the Confederate volunteers experience their first major combat.