His paternal grandfather, Alabama lawyer and former Confederate General Cullen Battle, moved to North Carolina when John was a boy and became a newspaper editor as well the mayor of New Bern.

With the assistance of Virginia Beach boss Sidney Kellam, Battle defeated "anti" Byrd Organization leader Francis Pickens Miller in the Democratic primary, by depicting him as a liberal and controlled by labor unions, and nearly ignoring his other opponents (Horace Edwards and Petersburg businessman Remmie Arnold).

Battle won 43% of the vote; Miller 35%, Edwards 15% and Arnold 7%[1] During his gubernatorial term, Virginia's General Assembly approved $45 million for school construction, which barely kept pace with population increases.

After his term ended in 1954, Battle went into semi retirement in Charlottesville, Virginia, although he continued to practice law, including representing the Albemarle County public schools, who faced a desegregation lawsuit by the NAACP.

Battle's political ambitions continued, despite the national spotlight on Virginia and the Massive Resistance declarations by incumbent Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. after the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in 1954 and 1955 in Brown v. Board of Education.

Former Governor (and then Congressman) William Tuck had similar ambitions and even more fiery rhetoric, and Byrd chose to run again to avoid the political infighting that would result from a Battle-Tuck primary fight.