AIR WAR OVER VIRGINIA
submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson
On April 20, 1861, just eight days after South Carolina secessionists fired the first shots on Fort Sumter, an enormous apparition descended gently upon a sparsely populated village nine miles west of Unionville, South Carolina. A cautious, well-armed group of men carefully ventured out to the open field where the 50 foot high monstrosity had landed, fully expecting to meet the devil himself.
Rifles cocked and trained dead ahead, the men approached the rapidly deflating spherical craft. As they neared it, a young man sporting a tall silk hat and formal Prince Albert coat leapt out of the attached wicker basket and frantically waved salutations. The man, who identified himself as Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe, told the incredulous crowd that he had just completed an aerial journey from Cincinnati, Ohio-more than 500 miles away-in just nine hours. The purpose of the trip, Lowe explained, was to test the nature of atmospheric wind currents before embarking on a much grander scheme: the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean to Europe by way of passenger balloon.
The rural crowd was not concerned with the merits of Lowe’s scientific quest. Given the state of political affairs then prevailing in South Carolina, it is little surprise that Lowe was summarily branded a Yankee spy. Only through a combination of persuasive oratory and good luck did Lowe escape bodily harm and incarceration. He was able to convince his audience to let him gather up his contraption and transport it in a wagon train to Columbia, the state capital. There, Lowe’s reputation as an aerialist was well enough known to secure his return to the North via railroad.
An unexpected side effect of Lowe’s journey was the insight it gave him into conditions in the South on the eve of the Civil War. Military encampments were clustered near rail junctions, with volunteers mustering for the coming conflict. Train cars loaded with Confederate regiments were heading northward, and the tension in the air was palpable to the young aeronaut. Lowe later recorded in his memoirs, “I was fully convinced that my country was facing a severe struggle, and I would offer the breadth of my body and resources to its service.”
Upon returning to Ohio on April 26, Lowe turned to one of his financial supporters, Murat Halstead, the influential editor of the Cincinnati Daily Commercial. Halstead had originally agreed to sponsor the transatlantic balloon flight, pledging unwavering faith in Lowe’s abilities. Lowe persuaded him to abandon that plan and instead write a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, suggesting that the Federal government establish a balloon corps under Lowe’s command to provide aerial reconnaissance for Northern armies.
While Lowe waited for an official response from Washington, another aerialist, John La Mountain, was actively working along the same lines. La Mountain, of Troy, New York, had been born in 1830 and had spent a great deal of his adult life as a merchant seaman prior to his apprentice- ship to America’s “grand old man” of ballooning, John Wise, in the late 1850s. Wise, who had made his first aerial ascent in 1835 in a craft of his own invention, also had his eyes on the elusive conquest of the Atlantic. Little is known of the exact circumstances that brought the two men together, though Wise would later recall La Mountain as “an apt pupil” whose experience as a seaman “made him proficient in the management of sailing paraphernalia, and...in the prognostication of weather.”
In 1859, Wise had raised enough money to construct an aerostat of more than 50,000 cubic feet, complete with a lifeboat gondola slung under the gas bag. He christened the craft Atlantic, after the obstacle he intended to cross. Because a portion of the funding for the Atlantic had come from St. Louis, Missouri, the completed aerostat was shipped to that city in June 1859. Wise planned to launch it there on a shakedown flight to Boston and then to embark from that city for Europe.
Wise, La Mountain, and an investor named Gager ceremoniously departed from St. Louis on the evening of July 2, 1859, quickly rising upward into the eastern jet stream. They progressed well enough at first, and the Atlantic reached Ft. Wayne, Indiana, by the next morning. As the ship approached the Eastern seaboard, however, it was caught up in a tremendous storm and foundered over Lake Ontario. The aeronauts sighted land and executed an emergency landing in a grove of elms near Henderson, New York, barely escaping with their lives.
The failed expedition brought about the end of the association between Wise and La Mountain. Despite nearly ending in disaster, the 809-mile trip was significant in that it established an official world distance record for non-stop air flight that would stand until 1910. In the aftermath of the voyage, La Mountain became something of a media celebrity. He voiced outspoken criticism of Wise’s behavior, portraying his mentor as being “close to panic” at various points of the trip. Though it was believed that La Mountain was prompted in his opinions by a reporter trying to fuel a controversy, the incident portended the contentious behavior that would characterize La Mountain during the Civil War.
After the partnership between La Mountain, Wise, and Gager was dissolved, La Mountain took possession of what was left of the Atlantic and made repairs to it. With the assistance of John Haddock, editor of the Watertown, New York, Reformer, La Mountain ascended from Watertown in September 1859 for what was supposed to be a “short experimental flight.”
As it turned out, the weather again conspired against La Mountain, as strong winds unexpectedly thrust the balloon far to the north. La Mountain and Haddock were finally able to land safely, but found themselves stranded in the wilderness of Canada, some 300 miles from their point of departure. They were forced to live off the land for four days until they were finally rescued by a party of lumbermen and returned to New York. La Mountain, with the help of some embellishment on the part of newspaperman Haddock, achieved widespread reknown for this demonstration of daring.
When hostilities broke out between the North and South in the spring of 1861, La Mountain was not far behind Thaddeus Lowe in offering his services as an aeronaut to the Union. La Mountain wrote directly to Secretary of War Simon Cameron on two occasions in May 1861, outlining his plan for using a balloon to observe enemy troop dispositions from the air. He included a long list of endorsements from prominent individuals of Troy and asked to be awarded a commission and placed in charge of tactical aeronautics.
La Mountain never received a reply from the secretary, perhaps because he lacked the support of a politically influential man like Lowe’s sponsor, Murat Halstead. Secretary Chase had received Halstead’s letter and, on the strength of the newspaper editor’s endorsement, had arranged a meeting between Lowe and President Abraham Lincoln for June 11, 1861. Transporting the balloon-ship Enterprise with him to the capitol, Lowe met with Lincoln and outlined his vision for the military use of observation balloons. In that conversation, Lowe proposed to demonstrate his balloon for the president. He also raised the possibility of a new dimension to reconnaissance: aerial telegraphy.
On June 17, on the grounds of the Columbia Armory in Washington, the specially equipped Enterprise ascended on tethers to a height of 500 feet, carrying Lowe and representatives of the American Telegraph Company. Using telegraph equipment aboard the ship and cables that ran along one of the rigging wires to the ground and from there to the War Department and the White House, Lowe sent the world’s first telegraphic transmission from the air:
Balloon Enterprise, Washington,
June 17,1861
To the President of the United States
Sir: This point of observation commands an area nearly fifty miles in diameter. The city, with its girdle of encampments, presents a superb scene. I take great pleasure in sending you this first dispatch ever telegraphed from an aerial station, and in acknowledging my indebtedness to your encouragement for the opportunity of demonstrating the availability of the science of aeronautics in the military service of this country.
Yours Respectfully, T.S.C. Lowe
The ingenuity of this demonstration was not lost on the commander in chief. Lowe had firmly cemented his relationship with Lincoln. For the rest of the evening of the 17th, the Enterprise was moored on the South Lawn of the White House, while Lowe remained as a guest in the executive mansion. Meanwhile, back in Troy, New York, La Mountain was preparing to accept an offer from another quarter. He had been waiting in vain for word from the War Department, when, on June 5, he received a letter from Major General Benjamin F. Butler, in command of Union forces at Fort Monroe, Virginia. Butler had learned of La Mountain’s offer of service and requested that the aeronaut make preparations to journey to Fort Monroe and demonstrate his balloon. La Mountain encountered a number of delays, ranging from financial shortages to the lack of a hydrogen gas generator suitable for use in the field, but he finally arrived in Virginia late in June. He had already heard of Lowe’s telegraphic ascent in Washington and publicly dismissed the feat as having “neither value nor advantage.”
Upon his arrival at Fort Monroe, La Mountain asked Butler to procure 60 gallons of sulfuric acid, three and one-half tons of metal filings, and the apparatus necessary to produce hydrogen gas using those ingredients. When all was readied, La Mountain, still relying on the heavily used Atlantic, was prepared to make the first true aerial reconnaissance of the war. On August 13, the New York Times reported:
“Professor La Mountain made two successful balloon ascensions at Fortress Monroe, having attained an altitude of three thousand feet. He found the encampment of the Confederate forces to be about three miles beyond Newmarket Bridge, Va. There were no traces of the rebels near Hampton. A considerable force is also encamped on the east side of James River, some eight miles above Newport News. The two cannons mounted at Sewall’s Point toward Old Point, he thinks, are only large field pieces. There are, perhaps, one thousand Confederates at Sewall’s Point.”
On the strength of that report, La Mountain could justly claim to be the first to effectively use a balloon in actual military service. That placed the balance of military aeronautical one-upman- ship squarely in La Mountain’s favor. But Lowe was hardly resting on his laurels. That summer he had accepted control of the Balloon Corps, a civilian organization established by President Lincoln. The corps would serve under the auspices of the Union’s Bureau of Topographical Engineers, and Lowe was authorized to requisition equipment and manpower from that bureau.
This new authority did not solve all Lowe’s problems, however. Since the Balloon Corps was essentially a civilian organization, it ranked low on the bureau’s list of priorities, and Lowe had difficulty getting the materials and money he needed. For a time he was forced to use his own balloon and to pay his aides out of his own pocket. Also, Lowe had under his command many of the amateur aerialists who had volunteered their services to the Union. Without the benefits of the military’s rigid hierarchy, controlling the resulting clash of monstrous egos would prove to be one of Lowe’s greatest challenges.
Lowe finally received funds to build a balloon on August 2, and the first American aerostat designed for military use was ready for deployment on the 28th. He had also requested a portable apparatus for generating hydrogen gas in the field, but that expenditure was not yet approved, so he was forced to inflate the balloon with gas from municipal lines in Washington, D.C. The filled balloon could not be transported a great distance, so balloon operations were limited to that city and its outskirts.
Lowe made a number of ascensions to observe the positions and movements of Confederate troops near the Union capital and, on September 24, provided the most dramatic proof yet of the balloon’s effectiveness. On that date he ascended to an altitude of more than 1,000 feet near Arlington, Virginia. Securely cabled to earth, and with telegraphic equipment in place, he was soon transmitting the presence and position of Confederate infantry and heavy artillery at Falls Church, more than three miles away. In what became a first in the annals of warfare, Federal gun batteries directed their fire toward unseen opponents based solely on information provided by Lowe from his aerial station. The results, in the words of Lowe, “made such an accurate fire that the enemy was demoralized.”
The effect of this adventure on the fate of the Balloon Corps was equally dramatic. The next day, the army’s quartermaster general informed Lowe, “the Secretary of War has directed that four additional balloons be at once constructed under your direction, together with such inflating apparutus as may be necessary for them and the one now in use. It is desirable that they be completed with the least possible delay.”
Meanwhile, La Mountain was capitalizing on his own exploits. He was a firm believer in the advantages of intelligence gathered by free flight, rather than by ground tethering. He also believed in good publicity. An entry in the Rebellion Record dated October 4, 1861, reflected both beliefs:
“A balloon was seen passing over Washington...[and] proved to be the airship of La Mountain, which had ascended from the Union camp of the Potomac. It appears that when La Mountain rose to a certain distance he cut the rope which connected his balloon with the earth regardless of the danger, and soared up a mile and a half, and got directly over rebel lines. Here he was enabled to make a perfect observation of their positions and all their movements, the results of which he communicated to headquarters, and which are said to be of the utmost importance. When La Mountain completed his observation, he threw out sufficient ballast to enable him to rise to a height of three miles, when he fell in with a counter current which carried him back in the direction of Maryland, thus pass- ing over Washington.”
La Mountain was acting as a free-lance balloonist, not as a member of Lowe’s Balloon Corps. His problems with equipment continued to dog him. He had been able to procure a newer airship, the Saratoga, to complement the Atlantic, but an inexperienced ground crew lost the Saratoga in a high wind on November 16, 1861. Left with only one, well-worn aerostat, La Mountain cast a covetous eye toward the equipment Lowe was amassing in Washington. The rivalry between the two men heated up when Lowe refused to grant La Mountain use of any of his new ships.
Lowe had a personal aversion to the manner in which La Mountain conducted himself, and it was largely this that accounted for the Balloon Corps leader’s refusal to cooperate. La Mountain, for his part, never acknowledged Lowe’s com- mand of the Corps and even went so far as to exert his own influence with the press to challenge Lowe. An article that appeared in the New York Herald extolled the military use of balloons and suggested that Major General George B. McClellan, commander of the Union Army of the Potomac, would name La Mountain commander of the Balloon Corps. Lowe rightly perceived La Mountain as a rival and felt that, by denying him access to Balloon Corps resources, he was simply defending a position he had fought hard to obtain.
La Mountain continued to assault Lowe, making free-flight ascensions with the Atlantic and playing up his own exploits in flagrant self-promotion. He plainly understood not only the military advantages of balloons, but also their entertainment value, as this “tall tale” from Rebellion Record reveals:
“La Mountain had been up in his balloon, and went so high up that he could see all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and observe what they had for dinner at Fort Pickens [Florida]. He made discoveries of an important character, my boy, and says that the rebels have concentrated several troops at Manassas. A reporter of the [New York] Tribune asked if he could see any negro insurrections, and he said that he could see black spots moving near the south Caroline, but found out
afterwards that they were only ants which got into his telescope.”
Lowe would point to La Mountain’s garrulous nature, scurrilous remarks, and extravagant stunts as evidence that the rival aeronaut was a detriment to the Balloon Corps. As the controversy built, both balloonists began summoning influential allies to their corners. After Benjamin Butler was transferred away from Fort Monroe, La Mountain was able to gain the support of a Bureau of Topographical Engineers officer by the name of McComb. McComb ordered Lowe to release one of his balloons for La Mountain’s use. Lowe, in turn, appealed directly to McClellan, who had, over time, become a firm admirer of the Balloon Corps chief’s efforts.
Charges and countercharges flew furiously between the two camps. La Mountain obtained information that two newly constructed balloons lay unused in storage in Washington and claimed that Lowe was deliberately keeping these balloons out of service so he could purchase them for himself after the war. Lowe responded to La Mountain’s accusations with a lengthy letter to McClellan which called La Mountain “a man who is known to be unscrupulous, and...has assailed me without cause through the press and otherwise... He has tampered with my men, tending to a demoralization of them, and, in short, has stopped at nothing to injure me.
“This man La Mountain has told my men that he is my superior, and is considered to be the Commanding General...I do not think that I should serve this man by giving him possession of my improved balloons...I submit that I should not be interfered with in the management of this matter.”
In the end, McClellan decided in Lowe’s favor. Already impressed with Lowe’s reconnaissance work, as well as with his skill in organizing the Balloon Corps, McClellan ordered, on February 19, 1862, that the disruptive La Mountain be dis- missed from any further service with the military. La Mountain’s dismissal was not an end to the problems the Balloon Corps faced. While Lowe was now clearly in charge of his unit, the infighting between himself and La Mountain had done serious damage to the Corps’ morale. Moreover, other military commanders were given to question just how much help a group of civilians, who were so prone to outbursts of egotistical temperament, would be in the future.
For nearly two years Lowe fielded balloons that contributed important tactical reports. In April 1862, he made a number of ascensions during the siege of Yorktown, Virginia, where he operated from an altitude of 1,000 feet on two consecutive days, accompanied by army intelligence officers making maps and “taking copious notes.” During the campaign at Fredericksburg in late April 1863, his aerialists transmitted hourly reports on Confederate troop movements. Perhaps the high point in the Balloon Corps’ existence came in May and June 1862, at the battle of Fair Oaks, Virginia, where Lowe made frequent ascents with telegraph equipment, “keeping the wires hot with information” on enemy troop positions.
During these operations, as with most Northern balloon ascents, enemy artillery was constantly trained on the fragile vessels. Despite this relentless bombardment, however, men and equipment rarely suffered injury; 19th-century artillerists found it nearly impossible to hit the relatively small targets suspended in mid-air.
Nevertheless, the end of the Balloon Corps came well before the end of the war itself. The corps had chalked up a number of impressive firsts and proved itself to be of tactical value, but a series of changes in army command began to shunt Lowe and his unit deeper into obscurity. By 1863, one of Lowe’s most important supporters, George McClellan, was relieved of command. In April 1863, Captain Cyrus Comstock was the military attaché assigned to oversee the organization. Comstock ordered immediate cutbacks in supplies and personnel, leaving Lowe increasingly hampered in his operations.
In addition, new charges of improprieties were being leveled at Lowe. One charge asserted that he was not keeping adequate records of the corps’ expenses. He countered that his first priority was not recordkeeping, but meeting the needs of commanders in the field. He was also having personal financial problems, however, and was receiving letters almost weekly from his long-suffering wife, pleading for money to make ends meet. When Comstock informed him that his pay, $10 per day since the beginning of the war, was being reduced to $6 per day, Lowe had had enough. After struggling in vain to have the pay cut revoked, Lowe reluctantly tendered his resignation from the Balloon Corps on May 8, 1863.
The corps itself continued on for a few more months under the direction of the brothers Ezra and James Allen, but the spirit that had driven the aerialists had been lost. By August 1863, the organization was quietly disbanded.
The Balloon Corps was phased out at a time when many had just begun to respect its value in the field of warfare. The rivalry among the bickering aeronauts had cast a negative shadow on the corps, to be sure, but the intelligence gathered about Confederate troops would seem to have made up for that. A Confederate artillery chief pointed out another aspect of the balloonists’ threat: “I have never understood why the enemy abandoned the use of military balloons in 1863, after having used them extensively up to that time. Even if the observers never saw anything, they would have been worth all they cost for the annoyance and delays they caused in us trying to keep our movement out of their sight.”
The Union’s Civil War aeronauts pioneered a number of techniques that would later become indispensable elements of warfare. Aerial observation and telegraphy were only two of their accomplishments; Lowe’s experimental ascents from the deck of the U.S.S. G.W. Parke-Custis on the Potomac River in November 1861 foreshadowed the aircraft carriers of the 20th century, and the Corps’ wartime experiments in aerial photography and cartography provided a startling glimpse into the future direction of warfare.
It may seem strange to modern military historians that Civil War commanders failed to recognize and exploit the full potential of balloon flight. Here was an opportunity to seize the ultimate high ground: the sky above the battlefield. Admittedly, aerostatic technology was in its infancy. The experts in the field lacked military training and discipline, and the balloons themselves were temperamental, often depending on the whims of nature for success. These obstacles were small ones for balloons, however, compared to the biggest hurdle they faced: the conservative attitudes of military commanders.
Officers of the 19th century had not been trained to see novel technologies like balloons as solutions to military problems, and the staunchest traditionalists fostered a general suspicion and mistrust of the few civilian aeronauts who knew the real potential of balloon reconnaissance. When the Civil War “air force” was finally grounded in 1863, the record suggests it was because of this ingrained short-sightedness. In the end, balloons were simply ahead of their time.