Texas Now Magazine April 2015 | Page 8

Singers’ badgering, Capt. Shea ordered him to report to General BLACK POWDER John Magruder, Commander District of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Singer and Fretwell arrived in Galveston late in December 1862 as General Magruder was mobilizing his troops to retake the port from Union troops. Magruder successfully drove the Yankee forces out of Galveston Jan. 1; the only time Confederate troops would re-take a Union held port along the Gulf coast. The duo from Lavaca scheduled a meeting with the skeptical Magruder who begrudgingly provided them with 25 pounds of black powder along with orders to build a demonstration torpedo and detonate it in the Buffalo Bayou. As ordered, they built their torpedo and placed it in the Bayou at a depth of 3 feet, towed an old scow over it, and according to reports from the scene, “blew it into kindling wood.”[5] General Magruder was impressed with the performance of the Fretwell-Singer torpedo. He ordered them to report to Maj. Gen. Dabney H. Maury, Commanding General of the Confederate District of the Gulf, at his headquarters in Mobile, Alabama. Mobile became the official headquarters of this rag tag group of engineers. Edgar established his torpedo factory in an old building at the corner of Water and State Street. From here they built torpedoes intended for deployment in Mobile bay. Singer and Fretwell recruited a group of Lavaca lodge brothers to assist building and THE HUNLEY TORPEDO Confederate Army. While in Mobile the boys from Lavaca met fellow Masons who heralded from New OrDETONATION leans: James McClinCORD tock, Baxter Watson and Horace Hunley. These gentlemen had been living in New Orleans SPRING LOADED building experimental PERCUSSION CAPS FIRING PIN submarines until the city was overrun by Union troops. Hunley and deploying their torpedoes mines. This group of “Lavaca Men” became the core members his group had already lost two submersof the “Singer Secret Service:” James Jones, ibles while in New Orleans and were in William Longnecker, John D. Braman, dire needs of additional funding to continRobert W. Dunn, C.E. Frary, B.A. “Gus” ue building a workable submarine. Singer Whitney, and his brother-in-law David invested $5000, Dunn, Braman, and WhitBradbury. In February 1863, the group ney evenly d