There are a lot of silly stories that have to do with the Civil War but perhaps none I've heard are sillier than the story of the Union Army Balloon Corps. For this reason, the Union Army Balloon Corps and the Chief Aeronaut of the Union Army [with an appropriately awesome Civl War era name] Thaddeus C. S. Lowe are forgotten heroes. The very existence of a Balloon Corps which took hot air balloons up in the air for recon purposes is incredible enough, but the actual story of the Corps is even more entertaining. The wikipedia page [from which, of course, I have learned everything I know about the Balloon Corps] has a host of information, and it seems that the Balloon Corps has some serious success in its time. However, they ultimately were looked upon as a joke by the military establishment.
Maybe this isn't as amusing to anyone else as it is to me, but I just love creating this almost certainly false image of Lowe in my mind as a strong, true hearted adventuring type but also a seriously geeky scientist and balloonist. It's kind of sad, in a way, that he was at the forefront of reconnaissance but was laughed at in his time. But he will get his share of glory here.
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