Military Career
At age twenty, McDowell participated in the French and Indian War. He was captain of a company, serving under George Washington at Braddock's Defeat at the Battle of the Monongahela. Later, he served in Lord Dunmore's War, participating in the Battle of Point Pleasant with future Kentucky governor Isaac Shelby. Shelby later appointed McDowell as his aide-de-camp. For his service in the war, he was awarded a large tract of land in Fayette County, Kentucky in 1775.
In 1773, McDowell represented Augusta County, Virginia in the Virginia House of Burgesses. He was a delegate to a March 20, 1775 conference in Richmond, Virginia to make preparation for the Revolutionary War. At this conference, he and Thomas Lewis were chosen to carry a letter to several delegates to the upcoming Second Continental Congress, thanking them for their actions. McDowell and Lewis both served in the Virginia Conventions in 1775 and 1776. McDowell also attended a second conference in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1776 where he declared the rights of man and instructed the Continental Congress to declare the colonies' independence.
At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, McDowell was commissioned a colonel over a regiment from Augusta County. He participated in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse while serving under General Nathanael Greene. His son John also participated in this battle. The elder McDowell was present at Charles Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown.
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