University of Virginia Library

Foreword

“Every generation which fights a great war wants to read about it
afterward.” Thus began an article on “The War History of Virginia”
in the University of Virginia News Letter seven weeks before
Germany surrendered in 1945. This acute observation was made by
Lester J. Cappon, one of the founders of the Albemarle County Historical
Society and its first Editor, who was then serving as the
Director of the Virginia World War II History Commission and has
since become Vice President of the Southern Historical Association.
Not only he but also other members of the Albemarle County historical
Society had already taken thought about the morrow of peace
when historians would search out records of the Second World War
and would attempt to recreate its story.

On January 25, 1945, soon after American forces in the Ardennes
Forest had turned back Germany's final desperate counterattack in
the Battle of the Bulge, the Society devoted one of its quarterly
meetings to a program entitled “Albemarle County Goes to War,
1941–1945,” consisting of reports from leaders of various local war
activities. Henry McComb Bush reviewed the history of the Charlottesville
and Albemarle County Civilian Defense Council, Gus K.
Tebell told how national war price and rationing policies were made
effectual in the community, several leaders of the Albemarle County
Chapter of the American Red Cross described various divisions of
its war work, Louis Chauvenet traced the development of Victory
Gardens in the city and the county, and Mrs. Robert V. Funsten
summarized the services of the U. S. O. in Charlottesville.

The Society was confronted during the course of that evening with
a graphic illustration of the value of recording the fleeting facts of
history while they are still remembered or ascertainable. One of the
speakers had sought in vain to discover simple facts about the location,
program, and number of volunteer workers of the Albemarle
County Chapter of the American Red Cross during the First World
War. Having been unable to locate any records pertinent to these
questions, she had then with complete lack of success interviewed
numerous persons of vigorous minds who recalled vaguely that they
had participated in Red Cross activities during 1917–1918 but whose
memories failed to authenticate a single detail relative to where they

worked, under whose direction, and with what results. A member
of the Society was able to relieve the concern produced by her narration
of this vain quest for any knowledge of local Red Cross volunteers
of a generation ago and of how they had met their problems.
This distressing gap in local history was filled—or at least a condensed
summary of the matter was found—in the presence of all
persons assembled when someone read a paragraph or two from the
brief sketch of Albemarle County's part in the First World War
which was published by the Virginia War History Commission of
1919–1927. The value of a published record could not have been
more memorably revealed nor the obvious moral more effectively
pointed if the entire scene had been dramatized, rehearsed, and staged
for the purpose.

It was quite evident that evening that members of the Society
found this incomplete and summary review of home front mobilizations
both interesting and inspiring. It was clearly worthwhile to
look back into the darker days through which the community and
the nation had recently passed. It was good to evaluate the influences
and the democratic techniques under which American people
had worked unitedly for the victory which was to come, quite in
keeping with the optimistic expectations which then generally prevailed,
within the year. The Society knew that it had enjoyed a
foretaste of a story which should be told in richer detail. It was
high time that something should be done to preserve permanently a
more complete record of the community's part in the attainment of
victory.

This impetus to further accomplishment by the Society in the
field of local war history was soon accentuated. In the spring of
1945 the Virginia World War II History Commission proposed to
the governing officials of Charlottesville and Albemarle County that
they should use public funds to finance the collection of local war
records and the publication of one or two local war histories. The
recommendation by this new agency of the state government, which
had established its headquarters and research office in the Alderman
Library of the University of Virginia, had been made in keeping
with specific statutory authorization and in accord with a statewide
policy of the Commission. Since this suggestion met with no favorable
response, the hopes of interested members of the Society soon
began to center upon the Society itself as a very proper alternative
agency for the direction of a war history project.

In the Society's first meeting after the Japanese surrender its membership
voted that it should undertake the preparation and publication
of a local war history and that its President should appoint a
committee to supervise all phases of the work. The War History
Committee which has now seen the project to its completion consists
of members of the Society and some other community leaders, each
of whom has contributed something of value to its ultimate success.
Members other than the writer include Miss Mary Stamps White
(Mrs. William Gerhard Suhling, Jr.), chairman, Chester R. Babcock
of the city, Henry McComb Bush of the county, Dr. Lester J.

Cappon, now of Williamsburg, Virginia, Miss Nancy B. Gordon of
the city, Mrs. John W. MacLeod of Crozet, Dr. Bernard Mayo of
the University of Virginia, Mrs. W. Allan Perkins of the city, Leonard
H. Peterson of the city, and Mrs. Larned D. Randolph, formerly
of Keene and now of North Garden.

When the committee had considered several possible means of
financing what would obviously be great expenses for compilation
and publication, if the intended volume was to be at all creditable,
and sought the respected counsel of William S. Hildreth, President
of The Peoples National Bank of Charlottesville, the resources of
that public spirited institution were voluntarily offered. Thus the
committee's first problem was solved. The bank agreed to advance
to the Society for this purpose funds which are to be repaid to it on
a non-profit basis from proceeds of the sale of the book at a price
equivalent to the actual cost of production. The bank has subsequently
enlarged its original commitment and has thus eliminated
possibilities that desired quality would have to be ruthlessly sacrificed
to economy and that the quantity of copies produced would have
to be decreased far below the anticipated demand. In return, the Society's
War History Committee has avoided all temptations to become
profligate in the expenditure of these indispensable advances, for it has
been motivated by a desire to keep the price per copy within the means
of every interested reader of this record of the community's part in
the war.

Its first barrier having been hurdled, the committee retained in
January, 1946, the services of Mrs. Gertrude Dana Parlier for the
compilation of the volume. The University's Alderman Library
graciously welcomed her into the fold of the research workers who
constantly investigate therein every conceivable topic from prehistoric
man to yesterday's news. The staff of the Virginia World War II
History Commission afforded her space in its quarters within the
Alderman Library and free access to its files. Thus began a cooperation
between the War History Commission, the Alderman Library,
and this new phase of the Society's program which has been of
immeasurable value to the latter.

All who know from experience the almost inevitable tendency of
research projects to expand beyond their originally foreseen scope
will understand sympathetically the fact that the ultimate limits of
this comprehensive study were not visualized in advance by any of
the persons concerned. Every step forward toward its completion
broadened Mrs. Parlier's receding horizon. Almost every recorded
fact or development suggested that she pause to investigate some new
ramification of her many-sided subject, that she divert her forward
steps to trace some significant byway, or that she must blaze a new
trail in exploring some previously unsuspected forest. Indeed, in all
that she did she was plowing new ground, for there was not in existence
among all the millions of books in the world a single one which
could be directly and helpfully comparable to her projected volume.
Nor was her unprecedented task made easier by the fact that the Society's

War History Committee had its eyes opened to new vistas as she
progressed. In every meeting its originally somewhat limited vision of
the length and significance of the story which it was pledged to summarize
was very properly enlarged. Literally every one involved
found that new implications and desirable extensions were suggested
by each milepost along the way—a fact which is a compliment to
the intelligence of Mrs. Parlier and her associates. Hence it was
obviously no discredit to anyone concerned that Mrs. Parlier could
not complete within the allotted time her journey toward a destination
which had been pushed far beyond its original distance from
her point of departure. When it became evident that she could not
reach the new goal before previous plans would take her away from
the community during a portion of last year, she was relieved of
a task which she had pursued with unusual diligence and interest.

In the period of slightly more than a year which she had devoted
to this work, she had helped to plan this entire volume, had gathered
materials pertinent to all of its twenty chapters, and had prepared
incomplete drafts of most of them. Despite the innumerable
additions and revisions of her subsequent collaborators and of the
editor, which have not in all details been of her choosing, she has
cooperatively reviewed and, in general, approved their handiwork.
The final form of a much altered manuscript still bears her impress.

“Of the making of books there is no end” runs the familiar quotation.
Of the variety of ways by which they are made there is also
no end. But the evolution of this one is so unusual as to be unique.
That is one reason why I have traced its story.

This volume is also uncommon in another respect. There are
more than three thousand counties in the United States. None of
these, so far as I have been able to learn, has yet had its civilian and
military participation in the Second World War recorded on as comprehensive
a scale as has the Charlottesville-Albemarle County community.
I am hopeful that other Virginia counties and cities which
have their war histories in preparation will soon begin to publish
volumes comparable to this one or even better.

In the whole effort of which Pursuits of War is the fruit, our goal
has been to present with accuracy in readable, durable, and economical
form the most complete practicable summary of the participation
of the people of Charlottesville and Albemarle County in all phases
of the war effort. More than usual care has been devoted to the verification
of facts and to the considered evaluation of the limited interpretations
in which the authors have permitted themselves to indulge.
A degree of objectivity in their approach to the subject which is unusual
in the publications of local historical societies is implicit in the
fact that only one of the authors is a native of the community or
has been identified with it for as long as a decade. They have taken
pains to point out instances in which its residents failed to measure

up to standards of wartime cooperation which were expected of them.
Omissions imposed upon the authors by the obvious necessity of selection
within a story too long for retelling in its entirety have not been
chosen in such a way as to hide ugly skeletons which might prove embarrassing
in a well ordered and justly proud household. For the benefit
of the rare but deserving research scholar who may wish to substantiate
the facts or opinions which are included, reference notes have
been appended as unobtrusively as possible. The Index will add to
the convenience of readers in both the present and future generations.

It is my privilege to acknowledge the indebtedness of the Albemarle
County Historical Society and my personal gratitude to several
agencies and many individuals who have freely given vital assistance
in the prosecution of a publication project more ambitious than
any other which the Society has yet undertaken. The cooperation
which has been received from the Peoples National Bank of Charlottesville,
chiefly through William S. Hildreth and Charles N.
Hulvey, Jr., has been an absolute prerequisite of success in this project.
The support of the Society's War History Committee and particularly
the sympathetic and judicious counsel of its chairman have been
a constant mainstay. To the really considerable aid of the six named
persons who, as authors and co-authors, have helped me during the
past year to prepare final drafts of all chapters can be attributed some
of the best features of the book; and even the assistance of unnamed
typists and proofreaders has been a valuable and appreciated resource
dear to the heart of a busy editor. Participants in certain local war
activities have reviewed portions of the manuscript which described
matters with which they were respectively concerned, and in some
instances they have graciously suggested revisions which have corrected
misleading impressions or minor misstatements of fact. Dr.
Staige D. Blackford, Dr. Everett Cato Drash, Dr. Byrd Stuart Leavell,
and Miss Ruth Beery approved the sections of two chapters which
deal with the 8th Evacuation Hospital; James E. Hudson, Louis
Matacia, Clay S. Purvis, and Edward V. Walker were consulted in
connection with chapters concerning local military units on the home
front and on the battlefronts; Miss Louise O. Beall and Miss Nan
Crow read the chapter involving the local U. S. O. Club; R. O. Hall,
Strother F. Hamm, and Charles E. Moran similarly examined the
Selective Service chapter; Larned D. Randolph, T. O. Scott, and
Mrs. Ruth Burruss Huff gave constructive criticism to the chapter
reporting wartime agricultural developments. A score or more others
have “done their bit” quite helpfully through consultations and
other services, providing information and pictures, which cannot be
acknowledged in detail. The owners of certain copyrighted matter
have granted to the Society permission to reprint excerpts from their
publications, and these authorizations are specifically mentioned in
the reference notes. The privilege of quoting at will from the Charlottesville
Daily Progress has been of especial value.

Finally, in behalf of the Albemarle County Historical Society and
of the many cooks who have stirred and spiced this broth, the editor,
in the role of chef, expresses the hope that the finished dish when
served to the community will prove so palatable as to engender the
warmest response to this service which the Society and its supporters
have performed.