Balloons in the war.
Professor T. S. C. Lowe appears here standing by his father in Camp before the
battle of Fair Oaks, explaining by means of an engineers' map the service he proposed to render the
Union army.
Below is the balloon from which
General George Stoneman,
Mc-Clellan's cavalry leader on the
Peninsula, and
Professor Lowe were able to look into the windows of
Richmond.
In this balloon also
Professor Lowe was telegraphing, reporting, and sketching during the battle of May 31-June 1st, and it was from his night observations at this time that came knowledge on which
McClellan acted in saving his army.
On arriving in sight of
Richmond,
Lowe took observations to ascertain the best location for crossing the
Chickahominy River and sketched the place where the ‘Grapevine’ or Sumner Bridge was afterward built across that stream.
His main station and personal Camp lay on
Gaines' Hill, four miles from
Mechanicsville, overlooking the bridge where the army was to cross.
Desperate efforts were made by the
Confederates at
Mechanicsville to destroy the observation balloon in order to conceal their movements.
At one point they masked twelve of thei best rifled cannon; while
Professor Lowe was taking an early morning observation, the whole twelve guns were simultaneously discharged at short range, some of the shells passing through the rigging of the balloon and nearly all bursting not more than two hundred feet beyond it.
Professor Lowe immediately changed his base of operations, and escaped the imminent danger.
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At ‘balloon camp,’ gaines' hill, while the two armies waited |
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