Naval
Aeronautics in the Civil War: 
Naval-Associated Operations of
Observation Balloons, Part II

     
As noted in Part I (AAHS Journal Winter 2009, Vol. 54 No. 2), at the start of the Civil War a number of civilian balloonists volunteered their service as aeronauts to the Union and Confederate armies. On the Union side, this included John La Mountain, who in August 1861 became the first person to ascend in an observation balloon from a ship, and Thaddeus Lowe, appointed as Chief Aeronaut of the Union Army. The latter had the support of Major General George B. McClellan, Commanding General of the Army of the Potomac, who obtained resources from the Army for Lowe to build a number of balloons for the Aeronautic Corps. Included in the funding was the construction of mobile hydrogen-gas generators, which Lowe had built at the Washington Navy Yard. The aeronaut also acquired from the Navy the services of a coal barge, the
George Washington Parke Custis, which the Navy Yard converted into a balloon barge, the world’s first vessel specifically constructed for aeronautical purposes. 
     Lowe operated the first of his new balloons off the
G.W.P. Custis on the Potomac River near Budd’s Ferry, Maryland, in November 1861. As additional balloons became available, and at the request of General
McClellan, several were deployed to other theaters of operations, manned by assistant aeronauts hired by the Aeronautic Corps. Balloons ultimately went to South Carolina and Illinois, where the latter would operate with naval forces on the Mississippi
River.

Balloon Operations in Georgia and South
Carolina
     The first of the Aeronautic Corps’ balloons to be deployed outside of Washington, D.C., went to Hilton Head, S.C., to support Union troops intent on blockading the Confederate port of Savannah, Georgia. Union forces seized Hilton Head and Beaufort, S.C., in mid-November 1861, and on November 24, assistant aeronaut John Starkweather and the balloon Washington were loaded onto the
G.W.P. Custis, bound for Fortress Monroe. From there they eventually moved onward to Hilton Head, arriving on January 3, 1862. Unfortunately, Starkweather then cooled his heels for four months, ignored by the Union commander, who had not requested his
services.(1)
     A change in commanding generals in April quickly resulted in the Union seizure of Fort Pulaski, which dominated the mouth of the Savannah River and effectively shut down the port of Savannah, 10 miles up river. Shortly thereafter the new commander, Brig. Gen. Henry W. Benham, called for Starkweather’s services and in early May the aeronaut moved his balloon to Fort Pulaski, tasked to observe Confederate activity in and around the city. 
     According to a New York Times reporter on scene, the most effective means of doing this was by placing the balloon on a ship and running it up the river. According to Starkweather, throughout the month of May he actively engaged in ascensions from either the deck of the steamer May Flower or
. . .