A couple questions to give a sense of the kind of things I'd like to talk about here:
Is 26 people enough to operate one or two balloons, or did they have to hire more people to get off the proverbial ground?
What are the jobs of people at each rank? What ranks are the people actually in the balloons, and how many people are in a balloon? Any privates up there, or do people need to be higher rank to have training in flight, signaling, recon, or artillery guidance?
This particular company had two balloons. Did they have enough personnel to keep both balloons going at once, or just one at a time?
I gotta admit I like the air force flavor of a balloon always being piloted by an officer, and I like the naval flavor of a balloon having a captain onboard. I don't know if that's who did that work or if the officers were always giving orders from the ground.