Taking our “Here’s Why” from the paper to the blog. An explanation for why something is the way it is in the Air Force/military. Sharpshooter: a marksman, or one skilled in shooting. This label has carried through each war, even into present day. The term became well-known for Alexander Gardner’s photograph, “Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter,” photographed in July 1863 (right). The image depicts a man lying dead between two rocks. “The sharpshooter had evidently been wounded in the head by a fragment of shell which had exploded over him, and had laid down upon his blanket to await death,”…
Browsing: Civil War
Reviewing history in the military, the Air Force and triumphs and misadventures in airpower. In October 1861, the Union Army Balloon Corps was activated as part of the Union Army during the American Civil War. The Balloon Corps was essentially an early form of reconnaissance conducted from a hot air balloon. How did this idea come about? Aeronaut Thaddeus Lowe was in the middle of experimenting a transatlantic crossing by hot air balloon. With the onset of the war, his attempts were interrupted. Instead, he was introduced to President Abraham Lincoln and offered his aviation expertise – he gave Lincoln…
