October 4, 1861 Lincoln watches a balloon ascension
Lowe and his balloon
149 years ago, on this day in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln observed a balloon demonstration near Washington, D.C. Both Confederate and Union armies experimented with using balloons to gather military intelligence in the early stages of the war, but the balloons proved to be dangerous and impractical for most situations since they usually could not fly above rifle range.
Not a very difficut concept in practice. The balloon, safely tethered was allowed to ascend to a height necessary to observe enemy movements. Once the data were collected, the balloonist signaled to the ground crew to pull him back down whereupon he reported to a courier or a telegrapher who sent the information onward.
The primary figure in the Union's experiment with balloons was Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, an inventor who had been experimenting with hydrogen balloons for three years before the war. Thaddeus Lowe was a self-educated man who was obliged to stop his formal schooling in the fourth grade.
Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe was born in 1832 in Jefferson Mills, New Hampshire. He spent his early years as a "snake oil" salesman of patent medicines using the sobriquet "Professor". He made and lost several fortunes, and held over forty patents over the course of his life.
Lowe's balloon system involved mobile hydrogen generators of his own design from which he filled the silk balloon envelope before ascents.
Just prior to the Civil War, Lowe built a large craft and intended to make a transatlantic crossing, but his tests were failures. In the same month the Civil War began in April 1861, he conducted trials around Cincinnati, Ohio, with the support of the Smithsonian Institution.
On April 19, he sailed 900 miles in nine hours, floating all the way from Cincinnati to South Carolina. He was jailed twice by Confederates who were convinced he was a Union spy. They eventually released him and Lowe collected his balloon and equipment and worked his way back to Cincinnati.
President Lincoln had learned of Lowe's activities and urged the overall commander of the Union armies, Lt Gen Winfield Scott to give Lowe a shot.
Lincoln's note to Scott
Lowe became the Chief of Army Aeronauticsafter the First Battle of Bull Run (a/k/a First Manassas,) and he served effectively during the Army of the Potomac's abortive Peninsular campaign of 1862.
With the view provided from his balloon, he discovered that the Confederates had evacuated Yorktown and he provided important intelligence during the Battle of Fair Oaks. Unfortunately for the Union, their commander George McClellan, an able administrator but a operational doofus, was unable to capitalize on the information Lowe provided and the whole campaign eventually ground to a halt.
Lowe enjoyed a good working relationship with George McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac, but experienced difficulty with McClellan's successors, Generals Ambrose Burnside and Joseph Hooker, who were not convinced that balloon observations provided accurate information. Both Burnside and Hooker were successively sacked by Lincoln after suffering resounding defeats by the Confederates during relatively brief periods in command of the principal Federal army on the east coast -- so what the heck did they know anyway?
Lowe became increasingly frustrated with the army, particularly after his pay was cut by 40 percent in 1863. Feeling that army commanders did not take his service seriously, Lowe resigned just after the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. The Balloon Corps was disbanded three months later, and the U.S. Army did not use them again until 1892.
In private life, Lowe turned his talents to the development of a mechanical refrigeration system and made many improvements in the use of natural gas for heating and lighting. Lowe moved to California in 1887, where he continued experimenting with aeronautics and other new technologies.
Lowe was a founder of CalTech
After Professor Thaddeus Lowe retired, he pursued his life-long interest in astronomy with a six-inch reflecting telescope when he moved to Pasadena. When he heard that a New York astronomer's observatory was surrounded by too many lights he offered to rebuild the observatory on Echo Mountain (Mt. Lowe) at his expense.
Lowe is considered one of the principal founders of the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech), the Lowe Observatory in Pasadena, California, was built as a testament to his early scientific accomplishments.
Professor Lowe died on January 16, 1913.
Interestingly, Lowe's granddaughter, Florence Lowe, took up flying in 1928. She formed the Pancho Barnes' Circus of the Air, giving Sunday afternoon performances at the many fields that dotted the Los Angeles Basin. She entered the first Powder Puff Derby in August 1929. Soon after she became the first woman to fly into the interior of Mexico and set several woman's speed records.
Pancho Lowe Barnes and one of her airplanes
In 1934, Pancho traded an apartment building in Hollywood for a ranch near what is now the main US test flight facility in the high desert of California. She grew alfalfa, raised goats, cows, and hogs, and provided "rest and recreation" for the Army Air Corps. She supplied instructors and planes for the Civilian Pilot Training Program in 1940.
"Pancho" Lowe Barnes...gossips wagged that she was little more than a madam. Pancho always maintained, even though a few attractive young ladies resided on her ranch as ranch hands, "what they did in the evenings on their time was their business."
Barnes jokingly named her compound the Happy Bottom Riding Club at Muroc Army Air Corps Station, later to become Edwards Air Force Base. "Pancho" knew virtually every US Army, and later US Air Force test pilot worth mentioning and her approval was considered an important threshold pilots must attain in order to outgrow "pudknocker" status.
Her role as operator of the Happy Bottom Riding Club was portrayed in the movie "The Right Stuff" featuring Chuck Yeager, the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound, and the seven astronauts of the Mercury program.
Originally Posted by texaspokieokie
