Lowe's scientific endeavors were cut short by the onset of the American Civil War, for which he offered his services performing aerial reconnaissance on the Confederate troops for the Union Army.

In July 1861 Lowe was appointed Chief Aeronaut of the Union Army Balloon Corps by President Abraham Lincoln.

Though his work was generally successful, it was not fully appreciated by all members of the military, and disputes over his operations and pay scale forced him to resign in 1863.

Lowe's fortunes had been all but lost, and he lived out his remaining days at his daughter's home in Pasadena, where he died at age 80.

[6] By age fourteen, Thad had ventured out on his own: first to Portland, Maine, then back to Boston where he joined his older brother Joseph in the shoe [parts] cutting trade.

While he was still recuperating, his younger brother invited him to attend a chemistry lecture by one Professor Reginald Dinkelhoff featuring the phenomenon of lighter-than-air gases, specifically hydrogen.

He pored over the book A System of Aeronautics by John Wise, which had specific instructions for the construction of aerostats including the cutting, the sewing, the leak proofing.

Within a week Lowe was invited to Philadelphia by Prof. John C. Cresson of the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Sciences, who also happened to be chairman of the board of the Point Breeze Gas Works.

Lowe made the flight successfully on June 28, 1860, from Philadelphia to New Jersey, but on his first attempt at a transatlantic launch on September 7, the Great Western was ripped open by a wind.

[19] Having established his identity as a man of science, he was allowed to return home, where he had received word from Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase to come to Washington with his balloon.

On the evening of June 11, 1861, Lowe met President Lincoln and offered to perform a demonstration with the Enterprise and a telegraph set from a height some 500 feet (152.4 m) above the White House.

Lowe's telegraph message to the President during the June 16, 1861 demonstration read: I have the pleasure of sending you this first dispatch ever telegraphed from an aerial station...[20]Lowe was competing for the position with three other prominent balloonists, John Wise, John LaMountain, and brothers Ezra Allen and James Allen.

After a reconnaissance of Confederate positions, Lowe was returning to his own lines and shot at by Union pickets, who apparently did not recognize him or his balloon.

Eventually his wife Leontine, disguised as an old hag, came to his rescue with a buckboard and canvas covers and was able to extract him and his equipment safely.

It was almost four months before Lowe received orders and provisions to construct four (eventually seven) balloons equipped with mobile hydrogen gas generators.

The newly-formed Union Army Balloon Corps remained a civilian contract organization, never receiving military commissions, a dangerous position lest any one of the men be captured as spies and summarily executed.

[23] Lowe returned to the Army of the Potomac now under General George McClellan, with his new military balloon the Eagle, though his generators were not ready.

[24] This particular battle marks a pivotal moment where conflicting intelligence reports between Lowe (in the air) and Pinkerton (scouting on the ground) gave vastly different accounts on the number of Confederate troops.

He quickly transferred the gas from the Constitution into the Intrepid by cutting a hole in the bottom of a camp kettle and connecting the balloons at the valve ends.

"[25] The muddy bogs around Fair Oaks and the Chickahominy River gave rise to many exotic diseases such as typhoid and malaria.

[26] The unsuccessful Army of the Potomac was ordered to retreat to Washington, and Lowe's wagons and mules were commandeered for the withdrawal and eventually returned to the Quartermaster.

At the same time, a Congressional assessment was being made of the air division and a disparaging third party report, which Lowe refuted in a lengthy response, gave pause to the Union commanders for further use of balloons.

[30] As the advanced techniques of aerial reconnaissance developed by Lowe became influential around the world, Great Britain, France and Brazil offered him the position of major-general if he were to organize a balloon corps for them.

General McClellan had put all balloon ride-alongs off limits, so Lowe sent von Zeppelin to Poolesville to visit his German assistant aeronaut John Steiner, who could entertain him in his own language.

Heat stored in the checker work pyrolyzes the mixture of water gas and oil, which is led through the chambers while the steam blast is on the producers.

The process spurred on the industry of gas manufacturing, and gasification plants were established quickly along the Eastern seaboard of the United States.

Prof. Lowe also held several patents on artificial ice making machines, and was able to run successful businesses in cold storage as well as products which operated on hydrogen gas.

He started a water-gas company, founded the Citizens Bank of Los Angeles, established several ice plants, and bought a Pasadena opera house.

[44] Lowe was portrayed by Stuart Whitman in the movie High Flying Spy in 1972, produced by Walt Disney Productions.

[45] The Civil War TV mini-series, The Blue and the Gray, features a scene with Thaddeus Lowe testing his observation balloon during the 1862 Peninsula campaign.