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| Confederate battery at Yorktown which fired upon the Federal balloonist and upon which ‘balloon Bryan’ looked down Captain John Randolph Bryan, aide-de-Camp to General J. B. Magruder, then commanding the Army of the Peninsula near Yorktown, Virginia, made three balloon trips in all above the wonderful panorama of the Chesapeake Bay, the York and the James Rivers, Old Point Comfort and Hampton, the fleets lying in both the York and the James, and the two opposing armies facing each other across the Peninsula. General Johnston complimented him upon the detailed information which he secured in this fashion, braving the shells and shrapnel of the Union batteries, and his fellow-soldiers nicknamed the young aeronaut ‘Balloon Bryan.’ On his final trip, made just before Williamsburg, May 5, 1862, the rope which held him to the earth entangled a soldier. It was cut. The balloon bounded two miles into the air. First it drifted out over the Union lines, then was blown back toward the Confederate lines near Yorktown. The Confederates, seeing it coming from that direction, promptly opened fire. Finally it skimmed the surface of the York River, its guide-rope splashing in the water, and landed in an orchard. On this trip the balloon made a half-moon circuit of about fifteen miles, about four miles of which was over the York River. The information which Captain Bryan was able to give General Johnston as to the roads upon which the Federals were moving enabled him to prepare for an attack the following morning |
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Review of Reviews. New York. 1912.
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