You might want to check these references on "balloons mounted on barges, your "first aircraft carrier:" I know its in one of them, at least.

1. Military Ballooning during the Early Civil War. F. Stansbury Haydon. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1941.

2. War of the Aeronauts. Charles M. Evans. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 2002.