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