MAJOR GENERAL IRVIN McDOWELL - MANUSCRIPT ENDORSMENT SIGNED 03/10/1858 - HFSID 82309

IRVIN McDOWELL
As Assistant Adjutant General, he sends the petitioner a copy of a request to the Secretary of War. The request has been endorsed by Commanding General Winfield Scott, signed for him by a deputy.
Autograph Endorsement signed: "Irvin McDowell/Asst. Adjt. General", 1 page, 7¾x9¾. Headquarters of the Army, New York, 1858 March 10. Official copy of a request from Brevet Lieutenant Colonel J. R. Smith, permanent infantry major, dated Fort Monroe, Michigan, 1858 March 5, to be authorized fuel and quarters "on the footing of the most favored officers." Submitted through General Winfield Scott as General in Chief to the Secretary of War. Endorsed by Scott (with secretarial signature), with this true copy sent to Lt. Col. Smith, signed by McDowell. Irwin McDowell (1818-1885), a West Point graduate in 1838, served as aide-de-camp to General John Wool during the Mexican War, brevetted to captain after the Battle of Buena Vista (1846). After the war, as shown in the letter, he served in the Adjutant General's officer, promoted to major in 1856. At the beginning of the Civil War, now a brigadier general, he was chosen to lead the Union Army's advance into northern Virginia, though he had never held a field command. His plans were overly complex for an untrained army, and at the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas to the Confederacy) the Union advance was routed. He suffered misfortune again as a corps commander at Second Bull Run in 1862, another Union defeat, which he blamed on a court martialed subordinate, Fitz John Porter. A review board established by President Hayes in 1879 exonerated Porter and blamed McDowell for the defeat. He retired from the army in1881, serving as San Francisco's park commissioner until his death. One vertical 2 horizontal fold creases. Lightly toned and creased. Winfield Scott (1786-1866), who rose to Major General in the War of 1812, was US Army Commander from 1841 to 1861, encompassing the Mexican War (in which his army advanced from Veracruz to capture Mexico City) and the beginning of the Civil War (for which he devised the Anaconda Plan to blockade and encircle the Confederacy. He was the last Presidential candidate of the Whig Party in 1852, losing to Democrat Franklin Pierce. The Secretary of War to whom this request was submitted was John B. Floyd (1806-1863), who held the dubious distinction of having been dismissed from his post within a span of two years by both the President of the United States (James Buchanan in 1860) and (as an unsuccessful Confederate general)by the President of the Confederacy (Jefferson Davis). Col. J. R. Smith, still stationed in Michigan, was a Union mustering officer during the Civil War. Torn at upper right edge. Stained at upper right corner. Otherwise fine condition.