History of Military Ballooning - Balloons in The American Civil War

Balloons in The American Civil War

With the outbreak of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln did consider the possibility of an air-war mechanism. This had some of the top balloonists in the country vying for position as chief aeronaut of a would-be aeronautics division. The scientific community as well showed great support in influencing Washington to consider the use of balloons. Eventually it was Prof. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe who would be awarded the title Chief Aeronaut of the Union Army Balloon Corps.

Read more about this topic:  History Of Military Ballooning

Famous quotes containing the words civil war, balloons, american, civil and/or war:

    We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.
    Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)

    Canaries in the morning, orchestras
    In the afternoon, balloons at night. That is
    A difference, at least from nightingales,
    Jehovah and the great sea-worm.
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    No slogan of democracy; no battle cry of freedom is more striving then the American parent’s simple statement which all of you have heard many times: ‘I want my child to go to college.’
    Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)

    ... one of the blind spots of most Negroes is their failure to realize that small overtures from whites have a large significance ... I now realize that this feeling inevitably takes possession of one in the bitter struggle for equality. Indeed, I share it. Yet I wonder how we can expect total acceptance to step full grown from the womb of prejudice, with no embryo or infancy or childhood stages.
    Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)

    Let the erring sisters depart in peace; the idea of getting up a civil war to compel the weaker States to remain in the Union appears to us horrible to the last degree.
    Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)