The Daily Dispatch: May 25, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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Inflated editors.

--The New York Black Republican editors have taken the business of planning the campaign into their own hands, and while none of them go to war in person they exhibit consummate military sagacity at a safe distance. The heroic General of the Commercial Advertiser says:

‘ Could balloons not be successfully employed to carry on offensive operations against the insurgents? To dispatch half a dozen of those celestial visitors over a camp at night, each dropping a shower of compliments in the shape of hand grenades, might do more execution than as many Paixhans in a whole day. The enemy's lights would afford an excellent mark to aim at, and, these disappearing, the noises arising from a camp would answer an equally good purpose. Taking a few hundred weight of such missiles as ballast, the vessel would of course ascend as she lightened her cargo until completely out of sight and danger.

What physical or moral reason exist against the employment of balloons for offensive operations in war? We can conceive of none.--And how easily could the insurgents be driven from positions like Harper's Ferry, where they can scarcely be assailed in front, by a few such nocturnal visitations. Death could be strewn around from the source beyond the reach of human vision, and with almost absolute safety to the operator. Even failure would only result in the loss of a few thousand feet of carbureted hydrogen gas. Why not try it?

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