Hot Air Ballooning in History

On January 7, 1785, Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from England to France in a gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air. The two nearly crashed into the Channel, as their balloon was weighed down by supplies, forcing them to throw nearly everything out of the balloon.

Balloons in the American Civil War
Both the Union and Confederate armies used balloons for reconnaissance during the American Civil War, marking the first time that balloons were used in the United States for reconnaissance. The professional aeronaut John Wise was the first to receive orders to build a balloon for the Union army. However, the balloon never was used because it escaped its tethers and was shot down to prevent it from falling into Confederate hands.
Thaddeus Lowe and John LaMountain both carried out reconnaissance activities for the Union army during the war. Lowe had foreseen the usefulness of balloon observations when he had accidentally landed in South Carolina on a flight from Cincinnati, Ohio, to the Atlantic Ocean in April 1861. One of his financial supporters, Murat Halstead, editor of the Cincinnati Daily Commercial, wrote to U.S. Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase and suggested that the United States establish a balloon corps under Lowe's command. This corps would provide aerial reconnaissance for the Union armies.
Secretary Chase arranged a meeting between Lowe and President Abraham Lincoln for June 11, 1861. On July 17, 1861, Lowe demonstrated his ideas for balloon reconnaissance and also for sending telegrams from the balloon to the commanders below. He used the Enterprise, attached to tethers and floating 500 feet (152 meters) above Washington, D.C. President Lincoln was duly impressed. Later that summer, President Lincoln established the Balloon Corps, a civilian organization under the authority of the Union's Bureau of Topographical Engineers, and granted Lowe permission to requisition equipment and personnel.
Lowe received funds to build a balloon on August 2, 1861. The first U.S. balloon designed for military use, the Union, was ready for action on August 28. Because he was forced to inflate the balloon with gas from municipal lines in Washington, D.C (he had not received his funds yet for a portable gas generator), the balloon could not be moved far, which limited operations to the Washington, DC, area.
On September 24, 1861, Lowe ascended to more than 1,000 feet (305 meters) near Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, DC, and began telegraphing intelligence on the Confederate troops located at Falls Church, Virginia, more than three miles (4.8 kilometers) away. Union guns were aimed and fired accurately at the Confederate troops without actually being able to see them—a first in the history of warfare.
This triumph led the Secretary of War Simon Cameron to direct Lowe to build four additional balloons. Two more followed shortly. The fleet now consisted of the Intrepid, Constitution, United States, Washington, Eagle, Excelsior, and the original Union. The balloons ranged in size from 32,000 cubic feet (906 cubic meters) down to 15,000 cubic feet (425 cubic meters). Each had enough cable to climb 5,000 feet (1524 meters).
At the same time, fellow aeronaut John LaMountain was also attempting to provide balloon services for the Union. He wrote to Secretary Cameron in 1861, but, because he had no influential backers, LaMountain did not receive a reply. However, the commander of the Union Forces at Fort Monroe, Major General Benjamin F. Butler, contacted him and asked for a demonstration. Using the Atlantic, which he had used to attempt to reach the Atlantic Ocean earlier, he made two successful ascents at Fort Monroe in July 1861. The New York Times reported that LaMountain could view the Confederate encampments beyond Newmarket Bridge, Virginia, and also at the James River north of Newport News. LaMountain had actually made the first aerial reconnaissance of the Civil War and also was the first to gather intelligence by free balloon flight rather than from a tethered balloon.
LaMountain, however, did not have the Union Army behind him, and he had difficulty obtaining equipment. He managed to obtain another balloon, the Saratoga. That balloon, however, was lost on November 16, 1861. He tried to get some of Lowe's equipment, but Lowe refused to cooperate. Each man found supporters, and the rivalry between the two grew. Finally, after accusations and hostilities on both sides, on February 19, 1862, General McClellan dismissed LaMountain from any further service to the military.
Lowe continued providing tactical reports to the Union troops. He provided information during the siege of Yorktown, Virginia, and in late April 1863, at Fredericksburg, he transmitted hourly reports on Confederate movements. During the battle of Fair Oaks, Virginia, Lowe continually transmitted information on enemy troop positions. Observations made during this battle proved to be crucial to the Union victory.
The presence of the balloons forced the Confederates to conceal their forces. To avoid detection, they blacked out their camps after dark and also created dummy encampments and gun emplacements, all of which took valuable time and personnel.
However, the balloon corps did not last until the end of the war. General George McClellan was relieved of his command in 1863, and Captain Cyrus Comstock, who was assigned to oversee the balloon corps, cut its funding and thus its effectiveness. Lowe was also accused of financial impropriety, and his pay was reduced. Lowe resigned from the balloon corps on May 8, 1863. By August 1863, the corps had disbanded.
As well as aerial reconnaissance and telegraphy, Lowe and LaMountain also introduced the use of aircraft carriers. Lowe directed the construction in 1861 of the first aircraft carrier, George Washington Parke Custis, a rebuilt coal barge with a flight deck superstructure. On one occasion, she towed one of Lowe's balloons for 13 miles (21 kilometers) at an altitude of 1,000 feet (305 meters) while Lowe made continuous observations. On August 3, 1861, LaMountain used the deck of the small vessel Fanny to launch an observation balloon 2,000 feet (610 meters) over the James River. He used the Union tugboat Adriatic for the same purpose. Word of the Americans' achievements even reached Europe, where the Prussian army sent Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin to learn what he could from this kind of warfare.
Some authorities claim that, although balloon observations contributed to battle victories, the Union Army's commanding generals did not use the balloon observations advantageously. Vague reports on Robert E. Lee's movements issued from the hydrogen balloon Intrepid during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign apparently served only to panic General McClellan. The general withdrew his vastly superior forces and positioned them seven miles (11 kilometers) from Richmond, Virginia, rather than attacking the sparsely defended Confederate capital and ending the war three years and tens of thousands of lives sooner. After McClellan was relieved of his command, Ulysses S. Grant took over and reorganized the Army of the Potomac. Preferring to rely more on attrition than on intelligence, he disbanded the Balloon Corps.
The Confederate Army also formed a smaller version of the balloon corps. In the spring of 1862, Captain John Randolph Bryan offered to oversee the building and deployment of an observation balloon. This balloon consisted of a cotton envelope coated with varnish. Unlike the hydrogen-filled Union balloons, it was a Montgolfiére—filled with hot air—because the Confederacy did not have the equipment for generating hydrogen in the field.
Bryan launched the balloon on April 13, 1862, over Yorktown, Virginia. Even though the balloon was rotating on its single tether while aloft, Bryan managed to sketch a map of Union positions. On his next flight, Bryan ended up in free flight after the tether was cut to free an entangled ground crew member. He was fired upon by Confederate troops below who thought he was the enemy, but managed to escape and land safely.
The second Confederate balloon was constructed of multi-colored silk, which gave rise to the legend that this Confederate balloon was made from silk dresses donated by the ladies of the Confederacy. Although the "Silk Dress Balloon" was constructed from dress silk, no actual dresses were sacrificed. This balloon was gas-filled in Richmond, Virginia, and carried to the field by tethering it to a locomotive. In 1862, when the battle area moved too far from the railroad, it was attached to a tugboat and carried down the James River where the tug, unfortunately, ran aground and was captured.
Another "Silk Dress Balloon" was constructed and went into service at Richmond in the fall of 1862. It provided aerial observations from its post until the summer of 1863 when it escaped in a high wind and was captured by Union troops.

References:
Hoehling, Mary Duprey. Thaddeus Lowe, America's One-Man Air Corps. N.Y.: Messner, 1958.
Rolt, L.T.C. The Aeronauts: A History of Ballooning - 1783-1903. N.Y.: Walker and Company, 1966.
On-Line References:
Evans, Charles M. "Air War Over Virginia." http://thehistorynet.com/CivilWarTimes/articles/1096_text.htm.

Balloons were used for surveillance and reconnaissance during the Civil War for both sides, the Union side invested heavily in their development. The ability to locate troops and assess their numbers quickly became a very important capability, but it is not known if a photograph from a balloon was ever taken because to date no vertical or oblique aerial photography captured by balloons from the Civil War period have been found.
The initiative for creating the US Army Balloon Corps, under the Bureau of Topographical Engineers, came from one Thaddeus Lowe who championed their development in 1861 to President Lincoln who committed to the project because he recognized the strategic advantage they gave his armies.
In 1863 the Balloon Corps was disbanded. This was due in part to the fact that they drew attention and provided convenient targets, and also those involved, including Lowe, were not exactly honest cooperative gentlemen. Also a factor in discontinuing this endeavor was that to counter the balloon advantage the Confederate side started using deception techniques that caused severe miscalculations on the part of those who had come to rely on balloon observations for planning strategic movements. This technique of reconnaissance deception would continue in all the wars since that relied on aerial surveillance.
Civil War Flying Machines
This is one of the most intriguing illustrations from Civil War era Harper's Weekly. It is an original 1864 illustration of various flying machines. The illustration includes no less than ten concepts for flying machines. One Hot Air Balloon is pictured tethered to the ground. Another is the famous Teisol system which features birds pulling the balloon along. The upper right balloon is a dirigible style system including a propeller. In the center is the Petin system which features a number of balloons connected together, holding a large observation platform aloft. People are pictured walking around the large platform. Most unusual is the Nadar system which features upward pointing propellers with no balloon at all. Accompanying this illustration is another leaf with includes a long and interesting story on the history of ballooning and descriptions of the various systems in this illustration. This illustration is in very good condition. The margin is a little ragged, but this will be behind the mat when you frame it, and it will not show. Click on the image to see a higher resolution picture.

Balloon Crash
This is an original 1863 print showing the crash of a Hot Air Balloon. Hot Air Ballooning is a relatively old sport, as shown in this fascinating print. Hot air balloons were routinely used for surveillance in the Civil War. This leaf contains two dramatic images of the crash of one of these earliest balloons. The upper image is captioned, "The French Balloon Le Grant Sweeping Along the Earth Near Nienburg", and the illustration shows four men falling from the large gondola. Interestingly enough, a small rabbit is pictured running for his life. The lower image is captioned, "The Balloon Caught in a Forest- Attempts of the Aeronauts to Escape". This image shows a spectacular view of the crashed balloon. The envelope is strewn across a number of trees, and the unfortunate victims are pictured around the gondola. The gondola appears to be completely enclosed, and is very large by today's standards.
The back of the print contains a fascinating story