lomci Rogers McConnell in front of Kit Nicuport,
Bottle of Verdun Airfield,
McConnell with hn two mechonics. July, 1916
Note the Virgimo ’’Society of Hot Feet" emblem on
hit plone
Clyde 8oltey, Rooul Lufbery, Jomet R. McConnell,
and Mormon Prince, ot Verdun, tummer, 1916.
Boltey -ot gro.ely wounded later, Lufbery ond Mc¬
Connell hilled in oeriol combot. Prince mortally in-
lured when hit plone crothed returning from air roid
info Germony.
в
Jim McConnell
For France
From ( arllui^o. !M.C. lo World War I
and immortality with tho Lafayette
Lsoadrille.
By PALL AY KHS ROC KWFLL
James Rogers McConnell, known
afTeciionately as Jim to his comrades
and innumerable admirers during his
college and First World War days, was
one of the founders and first hcros of
ihe 1-afayctte Escadrillc. He is not for¬
gotten today, a monument honoring
him stands by the Moore County
Courthouse at Carthage. North Caro¬
lina: his inspiring statue by Guisum
Borglum is on the campus at the Uni¬
versity of Virginia-Charlottesville. his
name is inscribed in letters of gold on
the wall of the Pantheon in Paris,
alongside that of his fellow Tar Heel
Kiffin Yates Rockwell. Much has been
written about him and is still being
written, sometimes inaccurate.
Jim McConnell came naturally by
his capacity for total devotion to a
cause he believed to be just. The Mac-
Connells are a sept of Clan Mac¬
Donald. long noted for its loyal support
of the Stuart rulers of Scotland. The
Clan was out in full force with Bonnie
Prince Charlie Stuart in the uprising of
1745.
At the bloody and decisive Battle of
Culloden. April 16. 1746. the badly
armed, starving and freezing men of
Clan MacDonald and its septs came
under intense volley-firing from the
Duke of Cumberland's English troops,
and could not get at the enemy with
their claymores and pikes. Accus¬
tomed to hand-to hand fighting, they
"tore stones from the earth and hurled
them in impotent fury." writes John
Preeble. perhaps the best and more ac¬
curate historian of the Battle of Cullo¬
den.
The English charged, finally broke
the Highlander line, and the ensuing
slaughter was frightful. The wounded
Scots were bayonneted without pity: a
group of badly wounded Highlanders
that had sought refuge in a hut was
burned to death.
For months the Highlanders who es¬
caped from the slaughter were hunted
and tracked down like wild animals.
Many were killed upon sight, others
were arrested, taken to Inverness or
London and tried for high treason. A
number were hung, others were de¬
ported and shipped to America where
they were sold as bond servants, usu¬
ally for five years.
Forebears In America
There is record that the first Mc¬
Connell forebear of Jim's in America
was an indentured servant. When the
War for American Independence
broke out he was too old for service in
the field, but his hatred of the Hanover
rulers and their English subjects was
doubtless as bitter as in 1746. He man¬
ufactured gunpowder for the struggling
Colonists, and aided in other ways.
John McConnell, grandson of the
old Jacobite, settled at Springfield. Il¬
linois. became a prominent lawyer and
knew Abraham Lincoln. When the
Confederate War for Independence
baike out in 1861, Lincoln commis¬
sioned John McConnell, by then a
judge in Chicago, a brigadier-general in
the Federal Army.
James Rogers McConnell was born
in Chicago. March. 1887. son of John's
son Samuel Parsons McConnell and
his first wife Sarah Rogers, of the
prominent Rogers family which came
to Virginia in 1630. As a child Jim spent
a few years in France with his mother
and older sister Julia, learned to speak
French and to love and admire France
passionately. Returning to Chicago he
attended primary schools there, then
studied at a long-defunct preparatory
school up the Hudson River from New
York City.
During a summer vacation in
Chicago. Jim and another teenage boy
drove the first automobile trip from
Chicago to New York City, a feat
which attracted much attention. In
many towns and cities along the way
the two adventurers were met not only
by the press, but by welcoming com¬
mittees of civic officials and other dig¬
nitaries. Jim made a large scrapbook of
newspaper clippings, which amused
him greatly until the end of his days.
Intensely Southern in feeling and
sympathy. Jim entered the University
of Virginia and quickly became a
leader on the Charlottesville campus.
THE STATE. FCBRUARY 1979
