nothing in his life to disprove this statement.

Mr. James Ford Rhodes said:

The reports in circulation after the Battle of Bull Run, regarding McDowell, are an instance of the hasty and uncharitable judgment of newspapers and their readers. It was at once said that the Union defeat was due to McDowell's intoxication. As a matter of fact McDowell never in his life drank a drop of beer, wine, or any alcoholic beverage, and curiously enough too did not use tobacco in any form. The proof of this is undoubted, but as part of it I may mention the positive assurances of Dr. William H. Russell, the American correspondent of the London Times, sometimes spoken of as "Bull-Run Russell," who knew McDowell well and saw him on the day of the battle, and of Colonel Franklin Haven, who served on his staff during the war. Dr. Russell told me that on the morning of the battle McDowell ate watermelon for breakfast, and the free indulgence in this succulent fruit made him ill, which was the sole foundation for the cruel report.[5]