Lighter-than-air balloons were first developed in France in the 1780s by brothers Joseph and Jacques de Montgolfier. Not long thereafter, French officials started using balloons on a limited basis for military purposes. Despite this precedent, as well as the obvious value of being able to see enemy positions from above, American military leaders were hesitant to use the technology in the years before the Civil War. In part, this was due to the unpredictability of balloons, whose flight could be difficult to control once they were in the air. The reluctance to use balloons also stemmed from a general unwillingness to try new and different approaches to warfare. Opposition to ballooning finally began to break down during the Civil War, when leaders on both sides experimented with the technology.
Over the course of the 1840s and 1850s, a number of Americans made names for themselves as balloon pilots, or aeronauts. These included John Wise, James Allen, John LaMountain, and Professor Thaddeus Lowe. When the Civil War broke out, several of these men made their way to Washington, D. C., to suggest the use of balloons to military and political officials. Lowe had the best political connections, and after staging several balloon demonstrations he was able to arrange a meeting with President Abraham Lincoln on June 11, 1861. Lincoln was impressed with what he heard and was even more impressed a week later, when Lowe sent him a telegram from a balloon using a wire that stretched from the ground into the air. Lowe continued to stage demonstrations, during which he took a number of important military leaders up into the air, including Irwin McDowell, Fitz-John Porter, and George B. McClellan. Finally, on August 2, 1861, Lincoln summoned Lowe for a meeting with Union general in chief Winfield Scott, and he was hired to build and pilot balloons for the U. S. military.
Lowe immediately got to work, determined to prove how valuable he and his balloons could be. On September 24, 1861, he used a telegraph line and signal flags to direct Union artillery fire at Confederate positions around Falls Church. Emboldened by his success, Lowe went to McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac. Lowe suggested that an official Balloon Corps be formed, and McClellan agreed. The general named Lowe as chief aeronaut of the Army of the Potomac and instructed him to recruit more pilots and to build six balloons and the 12 generators needed to fill the balloons with hydrogen. A total of 10 men served at one time or another as pilots in the United States Balloon Corps.
Lowe’s corps had a number of successes in 1862. He and his staff modified a coal barge, the George Washington Parke Custis, so that it could transport balloons and fuel them with hydrogen. The George Washington Parke Custis thus became the world’s first aircraft carrier. The U. S. Balloon Corps also conducted hundreds of flights that provided valuable intelligence during McClellan’s Peninsular campaign. For example, one of McClellan’s adjutants wrote that “it may safely be claimed that the Union army was saved from destruction at the Battle of Fair Oaks. . . by the frequent and accurate reports of Professor Lowe.”
The removal of George B. McClellan from command after the Battle of Antietam began the downfall of Lowe and his corps. McClellan’s successor, Gen. Joseph Hooker, insisted on exercising a great deal of oversight over Lowe’s operations. The egotistical Lowe was used to operating with virtual autonomy, and his pride was hurt. After several months of bickering, he resigned in May 1862, and the Balloon Corps was dissolved. The generals that followed Hooker saw little value in the technology and did not pursue it. Lowe continued to give demonstrations for naval leaders as late as 1864, but they were also uninterested.
The Confederacy also experimented with balloons, although on a more limited basis. Union soldiers reported sighting a Confederate balloon as early as June 14, 1861. Although these reports were never verified, Confederates certainly had balloons in use during the Peninsular campaign of 1862. Edward P. Alexander, who would eventually become commander of artillery in the Army of Northern Virginia, was the Confederacy’s most successful aeronaut. In particular, he helped coordinate troop movements from a balloon during the Seven Days’ Battle.
Although they never formally organized a ballooning unit, the Confederates continued to use balloons through the rest of the year, particularly in connection with the defense of Charleston. As was the case with the Union, however, Confederate experiments in ballooning largely ended after 1862. The Confederacy lacked the resources to make balloons or to construct the hydrogen generators necessary to fill them. Beyond that, the Confederacy had less use for the intelligence provided by balloons because their superior cavalry was generally able to accurately and quickly discern troop locations and strength.
Ultimately, the Civil War represented a small step toward the era of large-scale aerial warfare. A precedent had been set, and balloons would play a much larger role in the United States’s next major conflict, the Spanish-Ameri-can War of 1898. By the time of World War I, planes would begin to replace balloons, and war in the air would become as important as war on land or at sea.
See also TACTICS and strategy.
Further reading: Frederick Stansbury Haydon, Aeronautics in the Union and Confederate Armies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Charles Ross, Trial By Fire: Science, Technology and the Civil War (Shippens-burg, Pa.: White Mane Books, 2000).
—Christopher Bates
World History
