USS George Washington Parke Custis

USS George Washington Parke Custis was one of the first ships in the new field of naval aviation.  At the beginning of the Civil War, the U.S. Navy bought a coal barge and took it to the Washington Navy Yard, where Commander John A. Dahlgren converted it into a balloon carrier and U.S. Army Balloon Corps chief aeronaut Professor Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe installed a gas generator to inflate the balloon.  USS George Washington Parke Custis conducted its first mission in November 1861, when patrol boat USS Coeur de Lion towed it down the Potomac River to the mouth of Mattawoman Creek.  The balloon Washington carried Professor Lowe, General Daniel E. Sickles, and others who observed rebel troop movements in Virginia, proving the use of aeronautics in reconnaissance.  This model of USS George Washington Parke Custis is displayed at the Mariners Museum in Newport News, Virginia.