None of his sundry war activities seems to have had much of an effect on Gutzon Borglum’s handiwork. His figure of James McConnell, in the monument to him on the University of Virginia campus at Charlottesville, is one of the first memorials to the First World War to be erected, and it is surely one of the finest. It was because of his intense interest in aeronautics that he knew about McConnell and got this commission. And his creative skill had certainly been enriched by new experiences. The McConnell figure was a labor of love and, considering the nature of the subject, could hardly have been otherwise. Its start is told in a prospectus of the project signed by Edwin A. Alderman, president of the university: On March 19, 1917, James Rogers McConnell met his death fighting for France. He had been flying for France for over a year, and it was meet and fitting that he should encounter death in the upper air, battling with her enemies. The story of his life, since the beginning of the Great War, is a beautiful and heroic story. Out of pure idealism and devotion to the idea of freedom as established in France, he gave his service to the French Republic, first as an ambulance driver and then as one of the pioneer aviators of the famous Lafayette Escadrille. McConnell was a loyal son of the University of Virginia. He has enriched her traditions and bound about her brow some of his glory. His fellow students and his teachers take a solemn pride in his great devotion to freedom and right, and think of him as a new and secret tie binding us to the land of Lafayette and the home of Thomas Jefferson. They desire to place here some simple memorial of beauty and distinction that will recall to future generations of youth the beauty of heroic death, the virtues of duty, valor and self-sacrifice, and will keep green the memory of one who counted it a gladness to give his life for a lofty end. Gutzon’s sympathy for a boy of McConnell’s character, and his acquaintance with others in the Lafayette Escadrille, gave him a particular incentive to do this memorial. The commission came to him through a very dear friend, W. W. Fuller of North Carolina and New York. Borglum had also a deep admiration for Dr. Alderman. The sculptor’s conception of the statue was new and extraordinary. The form he chose was a male figure, standing tiptoe on a globe representing the earth, in the act of taking flight. Vast wings were strapped to his arms, almost concealing them, and to the calves of his legs were bound something like greaves, showing that the youth was a mortal in armor and not the mythological figure that a first glimpse would suggest. President Alderman’s letters were numerous and helpful. He was much concerned about the wings. In a letter to Mr. Fuller he wrote: