Last night I received an email from a great-great-granddaughter of Irvin McDowell, Cynthia Payson Hartdegen:
Hi,
My sister sent me your blog about my great-great-grandfather, Irvin. Family lore has it that he tried to dissuade Lincoln from fighting at Bull Run, believing it unwinnable. Lincoln allegedly believed that the soldiers needed a battle and offered to take responsibility for the likely loss. “Caesar can do no wrong” McDowell said (according to my grandmother, Madeleine McDowell Greene), and owned responsibility for the rout.
I was interested in your report of his Grandfather – was that Samuel? His portrait hangs in my library.
Thank you for your research, and comments.
Cynthia
Cynthia was referring to this article in which I commented on Michael Hardy’s recent biographical article on McDowell. I replied to Cynthia’s email, and received a response in which she detailed her relationship to McDowell. While she’s not aware of the existence of any of his papers at this point, hopefully we can flesh-out the General a bit in the future.
Harry Smeltzer
Bull Runnings 
Harry, to add a bit more information to the McDowell family tree, Irvin McDowell’s younger brother, John Adair McDowell, was the 1st Colonel of the 6th Iowa Infantry. A biographical sketch of him can befound in Addison A. Stuart’s “Iowa Colonels and Regiments,” p. 147-52 which I have posted at Civil War Notebook:
http://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2009/08/colonel-john-adair-mdowell.html
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Thanks for commenting, Jim. I wrote about John McDowell here a while back. A murky character.
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My name is John Roe, I’m distant to the Mc Dowell family, in that my Mother Lauara M. Mcdowell, was of 14 Childern, of William McDowell. They lived in a small town of Selam, California.
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Thanks for stopping by, John. Feel free to share anything or ask any questions you may have.
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