JohnDLittlefield
Sergeant
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2016
Corrections for historical accuracy:
2. The Rebels DID NOT make a balloon out of a silk dress. No Southern Belles were harmed nor did they donate the dresses off of their backs to make the Confederate's second balloon, The Gazelle, which was made of a patchwork of material that could have been used to make silk dresses.
Great material! Thank you.
It may be worth clarification that although a balloon was not made out of a silk dress or donated dresses, a balloon was made from dress silk... a distinction clarified in the papers of Captain Langdon Cheves of Charleston...
"Meanwhile the true story of the silk dress balloon remained, carefully
documented, in the papers of Mr. Cheves. To the materials originally
used in arriving at the correct version were added even more convincing
documents which had later come to light among the papers of the balloon's
designer?one of them nothing less than the bill of a Charleston merchant
for at least a portion of the silk used. So, in 1935, when a less credulous
historian appeared in the person of Professor J. Duane Squires to ask
assistance in presenting the truth, Mr. Cheves was prepared with the facts
which furnished the basis of the following account, published two years
later in the American Historical Review:"
I have provided a two part pdf (the manner in which it was published) for those interested enough to read.