Federico Fernández Cavada

Federico Fernández Cavada

Civil War

 

Cuban-born Federico Fernández Cavada served in the Union Army during the Civil War as an engineer and topographer with the Balloon Corps, sketching Confederate forces from the air.

 

 

Image Source: Mathew B. Brady, View of Professor Thaddeus Lowe and staff inflating reconnaissance balloon, ca. 1862, Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC05111.02.1345

Photograph of five men inflating a hot air balloon. Balloon is partially inflated in the image, and other soldiers can be seen in the background. Image was taken outside, with a hill and trees in the background.

Table of Contents:

Federico Fernández Cavada’s Biography

Primary Source: “Sketch of Virginia, and the Rebel Camps and Batteries”

Col. William F. Small, a member of the 26th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, drew this map from a reconnaissance balloon. It would have been similar to the kind Federico Cavada created as an engineer and topographer in the Balloon Corps.

Hand-drawn map of Virginia in December 1861 showing the location of General Hooker’s division. Drawing has hills, fields, bodies of water, and the hot air balloon in pencil, with camps labeled in ink.

Col. William F. Small, “Sketch of Virginia, and the Rebel Camps and Batteries, in front of Gen. Jos. Hooker’s Division in Charles County Maryland. Made from Prof. Lowe’s Balloon, for the Commander in Chief,” December 8, 1861. National Archives and Records Administration.

Civil War Veterans

Photograph of five men inflating a hot air balloon. Balloon is partially inflated in the image, and other soldiers can be seen in the background. Image was taken outside, with a hill and trees in the background.

Federico Fernández Cavada

Photograph of Pauline Cushman in military uniform

Pauline Cushman

Portrait of Edward Day Cahota

Edward Day Cohota

All Conflicts

Revolutionary Era Muster Roll with names of volunteers

Revolutionary War

Letter with stamp of Union soldier holding the US flag

Civil War

Note from a WWI stamp book with cartoon silhouette of fighting

World War I

WWII Era War Bonds poster showing soldier and parachutists

World War II

American soldiers running to a helicopter

Cold War

Soldier walking through alley between houses in desert terrain

Iraq & Afghanistan