Colonel Angus William McDonald, Sr. (1799–1864) was born in Winchester, Virginia, on February 14, 1799. He was taken in by his grandmother at the family home of Glengarry after the death of his parents at a young age. As a teenager, he attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduating in 1817. Commissioned as a lieutenant of artillery, he served along the Gulf Coast before joining his brother to survey land in what would later become Iowa. He was described as tall and robust, earning him the admiration and friendship of several Mandan tribe chiefs, and the moniker “Big Knife.”
Upon returning to Virginia, he married Leacy Ann Naylor in 1827 and moved to Romney, where he studied law and became an attorney. After Leacy’s death in 1843, McDonald married his second wife, Cornelia Peake, in 1847.
As the election of 1860 deepened the national divide, McDonald was in England as part of a commission working to resolve a colonial-era boundary dispute between Virginia and Maryland. When the Civil War broke out, he returned to Virginia at the age of 62 and reported to Major General Kenton Harper, then in charge at Harpers Ferry. Harper assigned him to oversee picket guards in that vicinity. In June, McDonald successfully petitioned the War Department in Richmond for permission to raise a cavalry regiment, which became the 7th Virginia Cavalry. The first company he recruited was Captain Turner Ashby’s Fauquier Mountain Rangers, and Ashby was soon promoted to lieutenant colonel of the regiment. Over the summer, McDonald’s regiment operated along the upper Potomac River.
By the autumn of 1861, McDonald suffered from severe rheumatism, which impaired his ability to lead. After a disastrous defeat at Romney on October 26, he lost the confidence of his men and resigned. In the summer of 1864, he was captured and later exchanged. However, weakened by his captivity, he succumbed to illness and died on December 1, 1864. He is buried in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery. Five of his sons served in the Confederate Army, including Edward Allen Hitchcock McDonald, who was colonel of the 77th Regiment, Virginia Militia, and later a major in the 11th Virginia Cavalry Regiment.
Sources
Armstrong, Richard L. 7th Virginia Cavalry. The Virginia Regimental History Series. Lynchburg: H.E. Howard, Inc., 1992.
Avirett, James B. The Memoirs of General Turner Ashby and His Compeers. Baltimore: Selby & Dulany, 1867.
McDonald, William N. A History of the Laurel Brigade, Originally the Ashby Cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia and Chew’s Battery. Baltimore: Sun Job Printing, 1907.
Williams, Flora McDonald. The Glengarry McDonalds of Virginia. Louisville: Geo. G. Fetter Company, 1911.
Reports and Letters
Updated: 10 March 2025
Created: 22 February 2025
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