Charles M. McDowell was born on 18 October 1743 in Winchester, Virginia. He was the son of Joseph McDowell and Margaret O'Neal or O'Neil. Joseph McDowell is said to have been a grandson of Ephraim McDowell, who emigrated from Ireland to America (1735) at the age of sixty-two. With his family, Ephraim settled first in Pennsylvania, then in 1737 migrated to the Valley of Virginia. Joseph, the father of Charles, moved to Quaker Meadows (near Morganton), Burke County, N. C.
After the outbreak of the Revolution Charles McDowell was named captain and in April 1776 was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of a militia regiment. He was never attached to the regular Continental armies, but in the backwater region of the South, continually subject to attack from hostile Indians and zealous Loyalists, he rendered valuable aid to the patriot cause as commander of one of the rear-guards of the Revolution. He occupied himself with the repression and destruction of Loyalists and took part in the successful expedition of Brigadier-General Griffith Rutherford against the Cherokees (1776). In 1780 Patrick Ferguson, major, 71st Highlanders, invaded the Carolinas with a large army of Loyalists. McDowell promptly sent word over the mountains to Col. Isaac Shelby asking immediate aid. Even with Shelby's force, McDowell's army was too small to deal with Ferguson and so the mountaineers began guerrilla warfare. They hung upon the flanks of the Loyalist army and destroyed small groups coming to join Ferguson. It was a warfare in which Shelby's restless activity brought immediate result. Three times he was detached from McDowell's army for hasty sallies. Finally, McDowell sent him to disperse a Loyalist encampment at Musgrove's Mill. He circled Ferguson's camp, which intervened, and routed the Loyalist forces. An express from Gov. Richard Caswell informed McDowell of the defeat of Gates at Camden and the mountaineers withdrew to the frontier and dispersed. A few weeks later Ferguson sent word by a paroled prisoner that he would lay waste the entire countryside if submission were refused. McDowell and Shelby at once sent out an alarm and the "backwater men" assembled again in September 1780. McDowell was in command of the military district, but the colonels feared his slowness and elected Col. William Campbell commander. McDowell, leaving his brother Joseph in charge of his regiment, went to obtain a general officer for the command from General Gates. Although the battle of King's Mountain (October 7, 1780) was fought in McDowell's absence, it was his and Shelby's initiative that brought the forces together and made possible the first Continental victory in the South after Gates's defeat, a victory which prevented lukewarm patriots from becoming Loyalists and helped to stem the flow of recruits to the British armies.
Toward the close of the war he married Grace or Grizel (Greenlee) Bowman, widow of Capt. John Bowman.
1715 - November 1771
1751 - 24 March 1822
1742 - 30 March 1772
15 February 1756 - 5 February 1801
1747 - 24 January 1817
23 June 1750 - 18 May 1823
27 October 1790 - 22 July 1832
27 December 1785 - 5 October 1859
28 September 1792 - 5 April 1826
