Lowe's ascent in the "Intrepid" over the Battle of Seven Pines, where he observed the oncoming Confederate Army and reported troop movements in a timely manner, saved the isolated army of General Samuel P. Heintzelman. Though he had used the hydrogen gas generators (each balloon camp was assigned two generator units), the inflation time was still another hour off. 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. The process took fifteen minutes, a time savings later valued at "a million dollars a minute."