Historic Families of Kentucky by Thomas Marshall Green, Cincinnati, 
1889, reprinted Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. 1959. pp. 64-66 
[Harrison county].

MAJOR HERVEY McDOWELL.  Another son of Captain John Lyle McDowell is 
Major Hervey McDowell, of Cynthiana.  With a large, well-formed head, a 
high, square forehead and prominent brow; a very large, clear, pale blue 
eye, that looks squarely at you, and sometimes gliters like steel; a 
full jaw and chin, indicating the utmost resolution and force; an 
athletic person - with the features that are peculiar to his race, Major 
McDowell combines, to a remarkable degree, the family traits.  About his 
manner there is a quiet reserve; his appearance and bearing impress all 
who meet him as those of a man absolutely impenetrable to fear, and as 
absolutely incapable of falsehood or any kind of meanness.  The soldiers 
who fought by his side in the Confederate army describe his courage as 
heroic, his coolness and composure under the heaviest fire as 
phenomenal.  These characteristics were most amply tested.  Graduating 
at the military school near Frankfort, in 1856, and at the Medical 
College of St. Louis, in 1858, he abandoned a large medical practice at 
Cynthiana, in 1861, to recruit a company for Roger W. Hanson's 
Confederate Second Kentucky Infantry, in which he was made a captain.  
With this regiment he remained until the close of the war.  Captured and 
badly wounded in the head at Fort Donelson, he was a prisoner for six 
months at Champ Chase and Johnson's Island.  Exchanged at Vicksburg, in 
September, 1862, he returned at once to his command and to the front.  
At Hartsville, in November, 1862, he was in the thickest of the fray.  
At Murfreesboro, he was in the desperate charge of Breckinridge's 
Division, in which Hanson fell, was shot through both arms, and wounded 
in three other places.  At Jackson, Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, Dalton, 
Resaca, Dallas, Kenesaw, Peach Tree Creek, in the intrenchments at Utay 
[sic] Creek, in all the fights around Atlanta, at Jonesboro (where he 
was again captured), in several battles in South Carolina - one of them 
on the old battle ground of Camden; wounded for the seventh time at 
Resaca, and six times again in other battles; in Kentucky, Tennessee, 
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina; in prison, in camp, 
on the march, in the hottest fights of the bloody war; in victory and in 
defeat, he exhibited the best qualities of a soldier.  Promoted to the 
majorship for gallantry on the field at Chickamauga, and to the 
lieutenant-colonelcy for meritorious conduct at Jonesboro, covering the 
Confederate retreat before Sherman's march to the sea - the regiment 
having been mounted for the purpose - no man in that service has a more 
honorable record.  Returning to Cynthiana after the cause of the 
Confederacy had gone down forever, he resumed his practice of medicine, 
spent several additional years in study and in practice in St. Louis, 
returned to Cynthiana again in 1868, and has since been as conspicuous 
for success and skill as a physician as he had been for good conduct as 
a soldier - the two callings, arms and medicine, in which so many of his 
name and kindred have been distinguished.  In St. Louis, in 1869, he 
married Louise Irvine McDowell, daughter of Alexander Marshall McDowell, 
a planter of Alabama and first cousin to his own father.  They had 
several children.  He is Presbyterian elder, and has been active and 
useful in the promotion of education.

McDowell Hanson Breckinridge Sherman
=
Frankfort-Franklin-KY St_Louis-St_Louis-MO TN AL GA SC MS

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