page_title: Union Army Balloon Corps
section_title: After the Civil War
hierarchical_section_title: Union Army Balloon Corps / After the Civil War
caption_attribution_description: English: The "Intrepid", a replica military observation balloon of the en:Union Army Balloon Corps at en:Genesee Country Village and Museum.
context_page_description: The Union Army Balloon Corps was a branch of the Union Army during the American Civil War, established by presidential appointee Thaddeus S. C. Lowe. It was organized as a civilian operation, which employed a group of prominent American aeronauts and seven specially built, gas-filled balloons to perform aerial reconnaissance on the Confederate States Army.
  Lowe was one of few veteran balloonists who was working on an attempt to make a transatlantic crossing by balloon. His efforts were interrupted by the onset of the Civil War, which broke out one week before one of his most important test flights. Subsequently, he offered his aviation expertise to the development of an air-war mechanism through the use of aerostats for reconnaissance purposes. Lowe met with U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on 11 June 1861, and proposed a demonstration with his own balloon, the Enterprise, from the lawn of the armory directly across the street from the White House. From a height of 500 feet he telegraphed a message to the President describing his view of the Washington, D.C., countryside.
context_section_description: Manned air-war mechanisms became important again to the Army when the airship (a dirigible, blimp, or zeppelin) came into existence with their motorized propulsion and mechanical means of steering. The United States Army Signal Corps established a War Balloon Company in 1893 at Fort Riley, Kansas (at the time, home of the Signal School), and the next year at Fort Logan, Colorado, using a single balloon (the General Myer) purchased in France. When that balloon deteriorated, members of the company sewed together a silk replacement in 1897. The balloon, dubbed the Santiago, saw limited use in combat in 1898 during the Spanish–American War.
  Reports of Lowe's work in aeronautics and aerial reconnaissance were heard abroad. In 1864, Lowe was offered a Major-General position with the Brazilian Army, which was at war with Paraguay, but he turned it down.
  In the 19th century, the idea of dropping ordnance on the enemy from an aerial station was not seriously considered, although there was a patent issued to a Charles Perley in February 1863 for a bomb-dropping device that could be floated aloft by balloon. The balloon bomb was to be unmanned, and the plan was a theory which had no effective way of assuring that a bomb could be delivered and dropped remotely on the enemy. Also, as a civilian operation the Balloon Corps would have never been expected to drop ordnance.
caption: A replica of the Intrepid at Genesee Country Village and Museum
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