History Book Lessons: First "Spy Satellites" Were Civil War Balloons
On June 16, 1861, at the invitation of the War Department, Lowe ascended in Enterprise 500 feet above the capital, telegraphing U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in the White House: “This point of observation commands an area nearly 50 miles in diameter."
Here's What You Need To Remember: The principles behind balloon observation endured - even though the practice itself was criminally underused by the Union Army.
A week after the first shots of the War Between the States at Fort Sumter in April 1861, the future of warfare came to Appalachia. Plowmen in the remote Allegheny Mountains heard a voice calling, “What state is this?” and, seeing no one about, replied toward the nearest woods: “Virginia.”The voice answered, “Thank you,” and the farmers were startled by a stream of sand pouring, unbelievably, from the sky. Looking up they saw, hanging in space above them, a gargantuan cloth sphere. Professor Thaddeus S.C. Lowe had merely dumped ballast from his balloon, but remembered, “A yell of horror arose from them, and if fleetness of foot is any indication of fright, then they must have been terribly frightened.”