The ''Intrepid'' was a hydrogen gas balloon or aerostat built for use by the Union Army Balloon Corps for aerial reconnaissance purposes during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. It was one of seven balloons constructed for the Balloon Corps and was one of the four larger balloons designed to make ascensions to higher elevations with a larger lift capacity for telegraph equipment and an operator. It was the balloon of choice for Chief Aeronaut Thaddeus Lowe overlooking the

Battle of Fair Oaks The Battle of Seven Pines, also known as the Battle of Fair Oaks or Fair Oaks Station, took place on May 31 and June 1, 1862, in Henrico County, Virginia as part of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War. The Union's Army of the Po ...

. The fateful flight over the Battle of Fair Oaks was instrumental in saving the fragmented army of Union Army General Samuel P. Heintzelman from what would have been a sure defeat at the hands of the Confederates. The ''Intrepid'' undergoing lengthy inflation was quickly hooked up to the spout of the smaller ''Constitution'' by means of a de-bottomed camp kettle by which the gas was transferred in shorter time to make the ascent. In 1983, the U.S. Postal Service honored the ''Intrepid'' with a postage stamp.

Design

The ''Intrepid'' had a capacity of 32,000 cubic feet of lifting gas (

Hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...

). It was supplied by hydrogen-generating wagons. These wagons, constructed by Lowe, reacted

sulfuric acid Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen, ...

with

iron filings Iron filings are very small pieces of iron that look like a powder with a dark-grey appearance. As the name suggests, iron filings can be obtained from metal working operations as the scrap material filed off larger iron and steel parts. They ar ...

to produce hydrogen gas.{{Cite web, date=2017-06-26, title=Civil War Ballooning, url=https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/civil-war-ballooning, access-date=2021-05-02, website=American Battlefield Trust, language=en-US

Design

References

See also