Later Service and Postbellum Career
In July 1864, McDowell was given command of the Department of the Pacific. He later commanded the Department of California, the Fourth Military District (the military government for Arkansas and Louisiana during Reconstruction), and the Department of the West. He was promoted to permanent major general in the regular army in 1872. In 1879, when a Board of Review commissioned by President Rutherford B. Hayes issued its report recommending a pardon for Fitz John Porter, it attributed much of the loss of the Second Battle of Bull Run to McDowell. In the report he was depicted as indecisive, uncommunicative, and inept, repeatedly failing to answer Porter's requests for information, failing to forward intelligence of Longstreet's positioning to Pope, and neglecting to take command of the left wing of the Union Army as was his duty under the Articles of War.
McDowell retired from the army in 1882 and served as Park Commissioner of San Francisco, California until his death in 1885. He is buried in San Francisco National Cemetery in the Presidio of San Francisco.
Read more about this topic: Irvin McDowell
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