Portal:American Civil War/Selected article/10

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The Union Army Balloon Corps was a branch of the Federal Army during the American Civil War established by the presidentially appointed Prof. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe as a civilian operation which employed a group of aeronauts and seven specially built, gas-filled aerostats for the purposes of performing aerial reconnaissance of the Confederate Army.

Lowe was a veteran balloonist who among other balloonists in the country was working his way toward an attempt at a transatlantic crossing. The Civil War interrupted his efforts, but he offered his aviation expertise to the development of an air-war mechanism through the use of aerostats. Lowe met with President Abraham Lincoln on July 11, 1861, and proposed a demonstration with his own balloon, the Enterprise on the White House front lawn. From a height of 500 feet he telegraphed a message to the ground describing his view of the Washington countryside. Eventually he was chosen, over others, to be Chief Aeronaut of the newly formed Union Army Balloon Corps.

The Balloon Corps with its hand-selected band of expert aeronauts served in Yorktown, Fair Oaks, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg and other major battles of the Potomac and Peninsula. The Balloon Corps served the Union Army from October 1861 to the Summer of 1863 when it was finally disbanded following the resignation of Prof. Lowe.