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Hydrogen balloons provided a technologically advanced platform for Union commanders to observe enemy troop positions and to target artillery fire during the Peninsula Campaign, the capture of Island Number Ten, the Port Royal-Savannah campaign, and the Battle of Chancellorsville. The Union Army possessed an immense potential advantage limited only by the imagination of its commanders and of the balloonists – known as “aeronauts.” While some aeronauts conducted serious study of weather and air currents, most balloonists before 1861 made their living as carnival performers and itinerant self-taught "professors" of chemistry and meteorology. Two balloonists who combined carnival entertainment with serious study of the air and long-distance test flights were Thaddeus S.C. Lowe of New Hampshire and John La Mountain of New York. Both obtained military sponsorship to employ balloons as aerial observation platforms for the Union Army. Lowe began operations in Washington, D.C while La Mountain worked from Fort Monroe in the summer of 1861. These observations enabled the Union Army to prepare an informed defense, reinforce civilian morale, and allay widespread fears of Confederate attacks. Despite their great potential, balloons made no revolutionary contributions to tactical intelligence collection because their operators did not always report timely, accurate, and targetable information. At Yorktown, balloonists failed the notice the withdrawal of Joseph E. Johnston's troops on 3-4 May 1862. Balloon observations also failed to disabuse MG George McClellan of his belief that Confederate troops on the Peninsula outnumbered his Army of the Potomac. Aeronauts observed Confederate positions at Savannah in the spring of 1862 while Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote employed a balloon as an aloft artillery spotting platform against Island Number Ten in April 1862 and Thaddeus Lowe alerted the Union's Third Corps to an impending Confederate attack at the Battle of Fair Oaks on 31 May 1862. Despite these successes, the Union Army disbanded the Balloon Corps after the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863.
Mapping and photographic documentation of the Corbin Family Cemetery, including the grave of Janie Corbin, the 5-year old girl befriended by Stonewall Jackson during the winter of 1862. Her tragic death of scarlet fever devastated Jackson. Moss Neck is also the location of Jackson's headquarters and winter quarters of the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia in 1862-1863.
Self-published by the Author via Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
John Cussons: The Confederacy's Lincolnshire Scout2013 •
1999 •
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