Thaddeus Lowe's operations in his ground service's first months indicate considerable improvement in developing and understanding the observation balloon a significant and useful complement to the army service. He favored the captive balloons because:
- He showed that a captive balloon could be efficiently and safely propelled to and from different locations, and that the senior officers could take measurements from virtually any appropriate point chosen.
- The civil war time duration 1861 to 1863, encouraged him to experiment and make success of captive balloons, here his motivation raised as he was self made scientist and aeronaut.
- He was attempting to study medicine to satisfy the wishes of his grandmother, but the boredom diverted him to his first passion, aviation using lighter-than-air gases.
