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Period: to
Prior to the war
McDowell was born in Columbus, Ohio, son of Abram Irvin McDowell and Eliza Seldon McDowell.[2] He was a cousin-in-law of John Buford,[3] and his brother, John Adair McDowell, served as the first colonel of the 6th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War.[2] Irvin initially attended the College de Troyes in France before graduating from the United States Military Academy in 1838, where one of his classmates was P.G.T. Beauregard, his future adversary at First Bull Run.