Mr. Smith's Flight, " ..He Floated With Apparent Ease " 1865

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
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One of quite a few, these are so novel and charming it just never occurs to you they'd be anything except novel and charming. Who knew one could be an eye witness account of an eye witness account? I can't find an image quite matching the article- it's somewhere. From NYPL, an 1807 image

Posting this in ' artwork ' despite the story attached. Well, because of it. In the plethora of patent images which must have crossed Clara Barton's desk at the Patent Office in Washington DC, most prevalent images are of all-imagined-ways-to-fly. We just wanted to go UP, if we could but get there. Everything from balloons to puffing machines to wings- we wanted to go UP. Improbably, in 1865 one man did.

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It's long, sorry, but worth it. Honest.

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This never made it to war, patent 1869. It's another indication we kept trying to go UP- until we did.

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" Attached... were a pair of webbed wings ..."

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Also post war, cannot find Mr. Smith's webbed wings- these seem to be the fluttering kind-

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Had to share this from LoC. I realize it's not ACW much less this country but these always remind me of some of the outlandish inventions creative people came up with during the war, shopped around to army contractors. All-time favorite was The Crusher. Sounds a little like this anyway, intent was to carry rocks over towns and drop them.

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