Grief

The University of Virginia community reacted swiftly to news of the pilot’s death. At the faculty meeting, roughly a week later, a resolution was passed to bring McConnell’s body back to campus even though French law forbid the repatriation of casualties in the midst of fighting, and the family had not yet been asked. At that meeting, the faculty also approved the erection of a suitable monument in some appropriate spot on university grounds in honor of the dead alumnus. Expressions of sorrow came from all around, including from the secret societies he he had been a member of, as did pledges of support for a monument.¹ McConnell was the first UVA student killed in the war. A piece in the school yearbook from the next spring described him dying for France, for America, for civilization. “He was a brave man, an idealist, who understood the profound significance of this war and who had a passionate and poetic love for the people in whose service he gave his all. His example, his character, his high vision, inspire all Virginia men who follow where he led across the blood-stained fields of battle.”² That article noted that of almost ten thousand alumni for which there was any kind of record available, over two thousand had enlisted in some type of war service, fifty-three of them as aviators.³ In a letter to McConnell’s father, the president of the university, Edwin A. Alderman, wrote on March 28, “He has written his name high upon the rolls of those who have illustrated by valor and courage the spirit of this University and the loftier qualities of American citizenship.” Alderman also mentioned that he thought there should be a “some beautiful and noble memorial” placed on grounds.⁴ Certainly others felt similar sentiments about McConnell’s death. His most recent home town, Carthage, held a service less than two weeks after his death, contrary to McConnell’s wishes in some ways, dedicating a memorial in front of the courthouse that would come to include two plaques and an obelisk in the style of the Washington Monument. A similar service was held in Paris the next day.⁵ France eventually sent their own plaque to the University of Virginia, “the institution where his moral character was duly tempered,” as wrote Ambassador Jusserand,⁶ and also established an elaborate memorial at the site of his crash. The Seven Society sent a wreath of their own to the UVA services and then a plaque, as well. Eventually, a huge monument for the Lafayette Escadrille as a whole would be set up just north of Paris, which is where McConnell was actually buried, along with the forty-eight of the sixty-eight American escadrille members killed in combat.⁷