This was not a small feat of engineering. Phoenix is smack dab in the middle of the desert and is the fifth largest city in the United States. Irvin McDowell may not have been equipped to be a great general during the Civil War, but once he was assigned to the Pacific he managed the engineers who built the West. That is the mines, the dams, the railroads, streets and sewers. Today my brother John M. McDowell P.E. still works as a civil engineer.

The city of Scottsdale, AZ celebrates General Irvin McDowell’s birthday every year,

I was born in New Jersey, which of course was the first Scottish colony in the United States.

Yes, one thing that becomes apparent rather quickly is that it was indeed a very small world back then, and an especially small military world. On the surface it appears that McDowell was randomly plucked from his relatively obscure staff position (I think his regular rank was still 1st Lt, though he was a brevetted major) to head up the expedition in Virginia. But the more I dig, the less likely that seems. Irvin’s grandpa was a mover and shaker Federalist in Kentucky, and his dad was mayor of Columbus. Considering the power weilded by Chase in those days, it becomes a little less surprising that McDowell, an Ohioan, was chosen. See also my post titled More Ohio Hmmms, as well as the intro to my bio sketch of Sherman.

Here’s a tidbit for you on the McDowell brothers.

They were related to Dr. Ephraim McDowell of Kentucky–great nephews, I believe. Dr. McDowell performed the first ovarian surgery with anesthetic in the United States, and is quire renowned in medical circles. There is a handsome statue of Dr. McDowell in the rotunda of the Kentucky state capitol building.

If I remember the genealogy correctly, a sister of Abram McDowell’s uncle was married to a Kentuckian by the name of Duke.
Their son, James Keith Duke, uncle of Confederate cavalryman Basil W. Duke, had a daughter named Martha McDowell Duke, although she was known as Patsy to friends and family. Patsy Duke was a second cousin of the McDowell brothers.

Patsy Duke married her third cousin, John Buford, Jr., originally of Woodford County, Kentucky. They were married at her father’s home in Georgetown, Kentucky. At the time, John Buford was a captain in the U. S. Army. Of course, he went on to achieve a modicum of fame later in the Civil War before dying far too young of typhoid fever.

Thus, by marriage, John Buford and Irvin McDowell were related. During the Second Bull Run Campaign, Buford and his cavalry brigade were assigned to serve with McDowell’s corps. Small world, eh?

Eric