It Seemed a Good Idea at the Time . . .

Bombers for General Lee

By Frank Cunningham

Packed away today in a crate at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington is a model of a machine that might have turned the tide of the War Between the States.

It is an airplane model, designed by a Confederate engineer with the idea of providing a fleet of bombers for General Robert E. Lee. With control of the air, the South might have broken the North's naval blockade and opened the road to Washington for the men of General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson and the legions of Stuart, Longstreet and Early.

Eighty-eight years ago, to the few who knew of the secret of Powers' bomber, the model looked like the South's answer to gain control of the air from North's armada of balloonists.   

The Northern balloons had weak Confederate rivals. The story goes that ladies of the South contributed silk dresses to make an observation balloon for use against McClellan in his peninsula battles. We do know that this balloon--whether made from ladies dresses or ordinary balloon silk--fell into enemy hands when the vessel from which it was operating was stranded by a receding tide and fell prey to the Yankees. The South also had a cotton hot-air observation balloon.

So the South had its two short-lived balloons. But the North had a large balloon corps, manned for a time by such famed early air conquerors as Professor John Wise, John LaMountain, and Professor T. C. S. Lowe, the commander of the balloon corps.

John LaMountain took up his war balloon from the deck of the USS Fanny and so this ship became the first aircraft carrier in the United States Navy. LaMountain made a umber of observations for the military.

The most outstanding "aviation" work in the war was performed by Professor Lowe. Arriving at the Virginia front in the Fall of 1861, Lowe soon had his balloon, the Union, high in the air observing Confederate movements. He too, had his aircraft carrier, USS Parke Curtis, used for river work. By 1862, Lowe was in command of seven balloons and he had possibly a dozen or so aeronauts and a large ground crew. Because of the rapid ebb and flow of Union fortunes on the Virginia battlefields, Lowe devised mobile gas units for filling his craft.

Confederate raiding parties unsuccessfully sought to capture the sky eyes of the invaders. Lowe, sometimes with Northern generals in his basket, continued to look down on the movements of the gray-coated troops. With General Stoneman, McClellan's cavalry commander, Lowe is said to have peered almost into the windows of Richmond from their sky perch.

McClellan's Peninsula Campaign fared badly for "Little Mac" and it has been stated that at Fair Oaks his army was saved from destruction by the observations of Professor Lowe.

Far away, at Mobile, Ala., was William C. Powers, an "agricultural engineer-mechanic." Powers felt that the Confederacy could break the blockade from the air. Powers knew balloons were not the answer. They raised comparatively small loads and could not be steered.

The Confederate government had offered $100,000 to anyone devising a means of smashing the Federal ring around Southern ports. Powers got to work with pencil, drawing instruments and an amazing knowledge of engineering. His model plane was built. To quote the Smithsonian Institution:

"This model which he constructed, and the accompanying plans which are additional evidences of his ability, and of the detailed thought he put into his work, revealed that he intended to put to use a steam engine as power. It was to rotate shafting and gears and drive two pairs of rotors or air screws; one pair to raise the shaft vertically, the other to drive it horizontally. A rudder was provided for steering and a rolling weight was to balance the craft fore and aft."

The car was to be 68 feet in length and the screws were to run at 6 9/22 miles per minute. The car was designed with a criss-cross slatting framework. Oddly enough, the same design was later used in the construction of the British-built Blenheim bombers as it was felt that such construction afforded strength and, at the same time, lessened the possibility of damage from enemy guns. An examination of the model and the 16 sheets of drawings accompanying it reveal that while it would not fly--it had too limited power and the airscrews were not properly efficient--it does contain "several features of the modern successful helicopters."

And what happened after Powers had built the model?

The ingenious Confederate inventor hid it!

The superior resources of the North meant that if such a craft should fall into Yankee hands the mighty plants would turn out many of these air bombers and the stars over the Southern cities and plantations would witness the carnage wrought by the airborne invaders.

Death might come to the Confederacy but it must never come through the air!

Powers' model was given to the Smithsonian Institution by William V. and Clara McDermott. It has its place among the great "flying machines" of history.

Today, though, the model rests in a crate at the National Museum. It was placed there along with other historical relics during World War II and hasn't been returned to the display cases.

Few people ever heard of Powers' bomber. Few ask about it at the Museum today.