The Union Army Balloon Corps was a branch of the Federal Army during the American Civil War, established by presidential appointee Thaddeus S. C. Lowe. It was organized as a civilian operation, which employed a group of aeronauts and seven specially built, gas-filled aerostats for the purposes of performing aerial reconnaissance of the Confederate States Army.Lowe was a veteran balloonist who, among other balloonists in the country, was working on an attempt to make a transatlantic crossing by balloon. His efforts were interrupted by the onset of the Civil War, which broke out during one of his most important test flights. Instead he offered his aviation expertise to the development of an air-war mechanism through the use of aerostats for reconnaissance purposes. Lowe met with U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on July 11, 1861, and proposed a demonstration with his own balloon, the Enterprise, on the White House front lawn. From a height of 500 feet (150 m) he telegraphed a message to the ground describing his view of the Washington, D.C., countryside. Eventually he was chosen over other candidates to be chief aeronaut of the newly formed Union Army Balloon Corps.The Balloon Corps with its hand-selected team of expert aeronauts served at Yorktown, Seven Pines, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and other major battles of the Potomac River and Peninsula. The Balloon Corps served the Union Army from October 1861 until the summer of 1863, when it was disbanded following the resignation of Lowe.