Balloon carrier

[7][8][9] Later, during the American Civil War, about the time of the Peninsula Campaign, gas-filled balloons were being used to perform reconnaissance on Confederate positions.

The battles turned inland into the heavily forested areas of the Virginia Peninsula where balloons could not travel.

A coal barge, the George Washington Parke Custis, was cleared of all deck rigging to accommodate the gas generators and apparatus of balloons.

From this ship, professor Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, Chief Aeronaut of the Union Army Balloon Corps, made his first ascents over the Potomac River and telegraphed claims of his successful aerial venture.

In 1913 the Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo designed a new type of boat called "Camp-Vessel", which allowed the transport of dirigible balloons attached to a mooring post.