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The US Army Air Arm: April 1861-April 1917

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The US Army Air Arm: April 1861-April 1917 CHAPTER I Balloons and Airships in the United States Army, 1861-1913 BALLOONS IN THE CIVIL WAR 1861, Maj. Hartman Bathe, acting chief of the ILITARY AVIATION in the United States Topographic Engineers, requested Wise to submit M began in the early days of the Civil War an estimate of the cost of constructing and operat- when the Army for the first time employed bal- ing a small balloon. Wise offered to build a loons for military purposes. Balloons had been balloon for $300 and volunteered his services used for reconnaissance by the French Army as free of charge. At the end of the month Major early as 1794 and they were primarily utilized Bathe (probably after consulting with another by American balloonists for the same purpose. officer of the Topographic Engineers, Capt. A. W. On 19 April 1861, four days after Lincoln’s Whipple, under whose jurisdiction the aeronauts initial call for troops, two members of the Rhode were later placed) wired Wise for prices on a Island 1st Regiment (State Militia), James Allen, larger, 20,000 cubic-foot, silk balloon. Wise offered a veteran New England balloonist, and Dr. Wil- to have the larger balloon ready in two weeks liam H. Helme, a dentist and balloonist, carried for $850. By early July he had been taken into two of Allen’s balloons from Providence, Rhode the government service as a military balloonist Island, to Washington. There, on 9 June, they and had been ordered to construct a large balloon. made the United States Army’s first trial captive On 21 July the balloon, the army’s first, was balloon ascent. The newspapers reported that completed, delivered to Washington, and detailed on the following day one balloon was moved to be used for observation in the Battle of Manas- with the Rhode Island regiment to Harper’s Ferry sas, then in progress. A ground crew walked the where for a week it continued ascents, but no balloon, already inflated, up Pennsylvania Ave- official confirmation of this report has been found.1 nue to Georgetown, up the Chesapeake and Ohio There is no further mention in the records of Canal, and across the Potomac to Fairfax Road, Dr. Helme’s activities as an aeronaut, but it is where Maj. Albert J. Myer, Chief Signal Officer, known that Allen left the army after the acci- fastened it to a wagon and the trip was con- dental loss of both of his balloons in July 1861 tinued. As the party neared its objective, Major at Falls Church, Virginia. He reentered the service Myer became impatient to reach the scene of in March 1862, and remained until June 1863. the battle; against the better judgment of Wise, he Despite the fact that his initial aeronautical ordered the driver to whip up the horses. Almost attempts were considered failures, he twice served immediately the balloon was snagged in the upper branches of the roadside trees; when Myer triedj during the latter period as acting head of the to force it free, great holes were torn in the bag. balloon corps, a position which he held when the Actually, this was not the tragedy it then appeared corps was disbanded in June 1863.2 to be, for had the balloon arrived in time to be Another balloonist, John Wise of Pennsyl- of use, the Confederates very likely would have vania, had also been contacted by the army soon captured it.3 after the outbreak of hostilities. On 12 June Wise quickly repaired the balloon and on 24 1 Balloons and Airships in the United States Army, 1861-1913 THE UNITED STATES ARMY AIR ARM - 3 July made ascensions at Arlington, Virginia. Two After a trip north to get his larger balloon, days later, while the balloon was being towed the Saratoga, La Mountain was transferred to the to Ball’s Crossroads, it was blown against tele- Army of the Potomac. On 4 October he inaugu- graph wires, which cut the towropes, and the bal- rated a series of free ascents from Brig. Gen. loon floated away toward the Confederate lines. W. B. Franklin’s headquarters at Cloud’s Mill. To prevent its capture by the enemy, Union troops These free ascensions were possible because of a shot it down near the Lee mansion at Arlington.* prevailing east wind, which would carry the balloon Neither the Allen nor the Wise balloon was over the Confederate forces located to the west of satisfactory, mainly because each had to be filled the Union Army, and a west wind at higher alti- with coal gas from the city mains and towed inflated tudes, which would return it. After completing his to the area in which it was to operate. Wise had observations, La Mountain would jettison some designed a portable hydrogen generator, which of the ballast, letting the balloon rise until it would permit inflation in the field and would encountered the east-bound current of air which widen the area of operations; he now urged the would carry him back to his own lines; then he army to construct such a unit. But the army would release gas until the balloon settled to blamed him for the two disasters to his balloon earth. The major difficulty which La Mountain en- and abruptly terminated his connection with its countered was lack of control in landing. On 18 aeronautics. Wise returned to his home in Lan- October, after returning to the Union lines, he caster, raised a cavalry troop, and rejoined the descended in the midst of Brig. Gen. Louis army, but after several months of service his Blenker’s German Brigade, and was welcomed health failed and he was compelled to retire from with a volley of shots that riddled the lower part active duty.6 of the balloon’s envelope.* In May 1861 another aeronaut, John La On 16 November the Saratoga was blown from Mountain, twice offered his services, two balloons, its moorings and lost over the Confederate lines, and a portable gas generator to the Union Army. leaving La Mountain with only the old Atlanfic. The War Department answered neither of his He tried unsuccessfully to get another balloon letters, but on 5 June Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. from Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, a rival army balloonist Butler, in command of the Department of Virginia with whom he had quarreled. Finally, on 19 with headquarters at Fortress Monroe, offered February 1862, General George B. McClellan dis- La Mountain a job as an aerial observer. La missed La Mountain from the service. Mountain became the only free-lance balloonist Although his work was unappreciated by the ever to serve in the Union Army. He made his army, La Mountain had made a definite con- first military captive ascent in his balloon Atlantic tribution to military aeronautics. He was one of at Hampton on 25 July, but a stiff wind made it the first men to make significant aerial observa- impossible to attain the altitude neces,sary for tions for the Union Army. As a result of his observation. However, six days later he was able observations at Cloud’s Mill, the Confederate Gen- to rise to 1,400 feet and observe the territory eral Beauregard had ordered his division com- within a radius of 30 miles around Hampton. mander, General Longstreet, to utilize camou- He reported that the Confederate forces were flage,* since the deception of dummy guns could much weaker at this point than had been no longer be assured under the eyes of the federal supposed.s balloons. Although his generator was never On 3 August La Mountain’s balloon was usable, La Mountain’s two balloons, the Atlantic moored to the transport Funny and carried out and the Saratoga, had proved so satisfactory that into the channel of the Potomac River from where they had been bought by the army in October.9 it made the Army’s first ascension from a boat. The balloonist who was to become the most Though succeeding ascents disclosed new Confed- important of the Civil War aeronauts was La Moun- erate fortifications with guns trained on Fortress tain’s rival, Thaddeus S. C. Lowe. As a preliminary Monroe and shipping in Hampton Roads, there to a planned transatlantic flight (which never is no evidence that La Mountain observed Ma- *Haydon also gives Lowe credit for making camouflage nec- gruder’s advance which led to the burning of essary in the confederate lines. See F. S. Haydon, Aeronautics Hampton on 7 August.’ ,5tf;6,Union and Confederate Armies (Baltimore, 1941), pp. 4 - THE UNITED STATES ARMY AIR ARM Balloons and Airships in the United States Army, 1861-1913 materialized), Lowe had made a trial flight on to join McDowell’s Army of the Potomac. While 20 April 1861 h his balloon Enterprise, taking Lowe was inflating his balloon Wise arrived in off from Cincinnati and landing at Unionville, South Washington and his balloon was sent forward Carolina. Although the North and South already instead of Lowe’s. Subsequently, when Lowe were at war, Lowe, after some difficulties, was learned that Wise’s balloon had been damaged permitted to return to Cincinnati by way of Colum- and had failed to reach McDowell’s army, he bia, South Carolina, and Louisville, Kentucky. As started to the front with his own balloon. Before he traveled through the South he became increas- he could get there, McDowell had been defeated; ingly convinced that the war would be long and on the afternoon of 21 July Lowe met the re- arduous, and he determined to organize a balloon treating Union Army and returned with it to corps in the Union Army and to offer his services Arlington.
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