GDG- Balloons

[James Cameron]

<< Thanks, I know they were also used at Antietam and in the Peninsular
campaign.  I suspected it was something to do with logistics, but I
wasn't sure how hard they really were.  >>

The AOP used observation ballons through the Chancellorsville Campaign. 
They did not accompany the army during the Gettysburg campaign.  Logistics 
were part of the reason.  The ballons relied on rather heavy gas generating 
equipment, and took a fairly large number of men to operate, which made them 
less useful during a campaign of active maneuver than in an at least 
somewhat static situation.  There were, however, other reasons.  One was 
that Thaddeus Lowe had differences with Hooker, and had been relieved from 
duty after a disagreement with the Captain Hooker had appointed to supervise 
his operations.  (Lowe claimed the relief was at his own request.)  After 
leaving the army, he proposed that he be directly subordinate to Stanton, a 
proposal which went nowhere.  Hooker did endorse another proposal by Lowe to 
have the ballon service placed in the Signal Corps.  The chief of the Signal 
Corps, however, didn't want them, due to lack of manpower and funds.

Edwin Fishel, in his "The Secret War for the Union", wrote that aside from 
the logistical difficulties involved, and Lowe's problems with Hooker, one 
reason the ballon service was discontinued after the middle of June was that 
despite the altitude advantage they provided observers, they may really not 
have been providing enough useful intelligence, over and above that gathered 
by ground based observers at the various signal stations, to make them worth 
the trouble and expense.  But he does also state that it is something of a 
mystery why, even if not well suited to maneuver warfare, an effort to use 
them again during Petersburg wasn't made.

Jim Cameron