Who was America’s first Aeronaut? Technology and the Civil War: A Story of an Innovator Ahead of His Time–Thaddeus Lowe; Chemist, Inventor, and an American Civil War Aeronaut.
Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe, Aeronaut, (1832-1913) in just eight days after the first shots of the Civil War were fired made a balloon ascension. He was a self taught scientist. His ground breaking work in the of field aeronatics resulted in a 500 mile air balloon voyage departing from Cincinnati, Ohio to parts unknown.
Lowe wrote an account of his adventure on his balloon, the Enterprise, shared in newspapers across the country. The Keowee Courier (Pickens Court House, S.C. 1849-), a newspaper published in a town about 75 miles distant from Union, S.C. printed this colorful and detailed description, on May 25, 1861, of Lowe’s voyage. Having waited for over a month for optimal flying conditions, Lowe commenced preparing his balloon on April 19, 1861. Lowe left Cincinnati before dawn, at about 4 a.m., to great fanfare from the people of that city “Below and for miles around, was a barren wilderness, but at some distance I could see an occasional farmhouse.” He descended and sang out to men working in a field, asking “What state is this?” The Virginians never thought to look up from whence the mysterious voice came, certainly the idea of a voice originating from above their heads being inconceivable during this early period in aeronautical experimentation. Lowe continued on to parts of western South Carolina, where he attempted to land his balloon, but local inhabitants insisted that he continue with his “hellish
contrivance” and land elsewhere.
Deciding that he must land soon, he neared the plantation of Kelton in rural Union County, South Carolina. “I heard many discharges of muskets. Not knowing, but being apprehensive that the globe was the object of firing, I prepared for making signals, when I should again near the earth.” Professor Lowe, dressed in his finest evening wear, descended to the ground with hat in hand and valve rope in the other. The Enterprise struck terror in the earthlings. Old folks prayed, people scattered in all directions, and cowered behind a log hut nearby. A 6 foot tall young woman assisted Professor Lowe in securing the balloon. “Men arrived with muskets, threatening destruction to the ‘devil’ that could travel through the air…but the tall woman assured [him] there was no danger, for all the men then in the neighborhood were cowards, the brave ones having gone to the wars.” Lowe was taken into town by wagon where a hotel keeper recognized him as a distinguished scientist whom he had seen the year previous on his travels north. The local newspaper editor corroborated the far-fetched story, avowing that the damp recently printed newspapers Lowe had brought with him were real. Amid cries of “tar and feather the Yankee,” Lowe was taken on to Columbia where professors at the University of South Carolina attested to the verity of his tale, being familiar with the various scientific instruments he brought along on his flight. Treated as a celebrity, save for a few scowls and threats by newly minted Confederates, he was graciously sent north on the train with all of his equipment and a passport granted by Columbia’s mayor to see Lowe safely through the Confederate States.
When Lowe arrived in Washington, D.C., he decided to offer his services to the U.S. Government, persuading them that the use of his balloons for reconnaissance during the recent conflict would be beneficial to the Union Army.
On the evening of July 11, 1861 Lowe met President
Lincoln and offered to perform a demonstration with
the Enterprise and a telegraph set from a height
some 500 feet (152.4 m) above the White House. In
the telegraph message Lowe asserted:
“I have the pleasure of sending you this first dispatch
ever telegraphed from an aerial station… “
Word of his exploits got back to the President, who ordered General Winfield Scott to oversee Lowe’s formation of a balloon corps, with Lowe as Chief Aeronaut.
On June 1, 1862, Thaddeus Lowe floated above a fierce Civil War battle in a silk hydrogen balloon. From the wicker basket dangling a thousand feet above ground, he telegraphed a message to Northern generals on the ground: Union troops were finally driving back the Confederate forces. Lowe’s message was transmitted to the War Department in Washington, where President Abraham Lincoln read his flying spy’s good news with relief. For two years during the Civil War, a corps of balloonists led by Thaddeus Lowe spied on the Confederate army. They counted rebel soldiers, detected troop movement, and directed artillery fire against enemy positions. Lowe and his aeronauts provide valuable intelligence to the Union army, even after the balloons became targets of Confederate shooters and saboteurs (note the telegraph operator seated in the foreground is connected to the balloon in the background).
“Confederate fire attempted to bring down the balloon of Thaddeus Lowe. He wrote, “when within a mile of the earth, troops commenced firing at the balloon, I descended to hear the whistling of the bullets and the shouts of the soldiers. ‘Show your colors.’ I had no flag with me, and knowing that if I attempted to effect a landing there, my balloon would be riddled, I concluded to sail on and to risk descending outside of their lines. I escaped the enemy.” If caught he would have been hanged as a spy. His wife searched the countryside and found him in a field unharmed. They packed up the balloon and basket, then returned back to the safety of the Union lines.
Lowe was given use of a converted coal barge, the George Washington Parke Custis, onto which he loaded two new balloons and two new hydrogen gas generators, with which Lowe performed the first observations over water thereby making the GWP Custis the first ever aircraft carrier. Prof. Lowe ascending in the Intrepid to observe the Battle of Fair Oaks “I have the pleasure of reporting the complete success of the first balloon expedition by water ever attempted.
Thaddeus Lowe rode his horse during the Peninsular Campaign of 1862, “I joined General Stoneman’s command, and on the morning of the 20th we arrived near the Chickahominy.
On the following morning, accompanied by General Stoneman, I ascended and there had a distinct view of Richmond, the general being the first to point out the city as we were rising. As we gained altitude we saw that the Confederates who had made their way from Yorktown were camped about Richmond, “–Thaddeus Lowe.
What happened to the Balloon Corps? The Corps was disbanded in early 1863, in spite of their valuable service. Partly because the Corps was a civilian operation of which the pay was much higher than military pay, and partly because the entire operation was extremely expensive to maintain. All of this led to political problems for Lowe and the entire corps. On April 8, 1863, Lowe resigned his position as Chief Aeronaut in disgust and returned to the private sector. As a post script: Lowe and the Balloon Corps were always viewed with disdain and mistrust by many in the Union army. Some Confederate ballooning operated for a short time in 1861. Little evidence was found.
Lowe’s personal pair of binoculars.