In early February 1863, most of Singer’s group traveled to Richmond to demonstrate the new mine to the War Department, and the following month the Confederate Congress approved an act “to provide and organize engineer troops.” Secretary of War James Seddon authorized Singer to form a company of no more than 25 men for a special torpedo service to be attached to the Bureau of Engineers under chief J.F. Gilmer, subject to the immediate orders of the commander of the district in which they were operating. Captain Singer then organized a unit he called “Singer’s Submarine Corps.”

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Confederate authorities also furnished the group with the necessary ammunition and materiel for manufacturing the devices, as well as free transportation for both the men and the machines. Compensation for their efforts was to be 50 percent of the value of all vessels of war and other Federal property they were able to destroy. Their devices were to be fully protected by patents.

With those details worked out, Seddon put the group to work immediately, transferring Singer and Robert Dunn to the Engineer Troops and ordering them to report to General Joseph E. Johnston at Morton, Miss. The group also sent operators in Richmond, Charleston, Mobile, Wilmington, N.C., and Savannah, Ga.

While mining the port of Mobile some weeks later, Singer and Fretwell met fellow Masons James McClintock, Baxter Watson and Horace Hunley, three inventors from New Orleans who had built—and lost—two experimental submarines in the past two years. The three were inducted into what was now being called the Singer Secret Service Corps, and the group decided to finance construction of a third submarine for $15,000. From the ranks of this secret organization, five men stepped forward to purchase shares in the project. Singer purchased one-third of the vessel at a cost of $5,000; Hunley retained another third. The remaining shares were evenly divided between Dunn, Braman and Whitney.

Singer and several company members then returned to Richmond, leaving Dunn, Braman, Whitney, McClintock and Watson in Mobile to oversee fabrication of the new submarine and some underwater mines. Late in the spring of 1863, with Confederate fortunes in Mississippi deteriorating rapidly, Fretwell and Hunley were dispatched to Yazoo City, Miss., to persuade Navy Lieutenant Isaac N. Brown to use their torpedoes to mine the water approaches leading to the city’s Confederate shipyards. On July 4, Vicksburg surrendered, and five days later the last Southern stronghold on the Mississippi River fell to Union forces.

Fretwell and his fellow operatives moved quickly to anchor several mines just below Yazoo City. The time had come to prove the military worth of their deadly invention. Within hours after the mines had been placed, Federal gunboats steamed up the Yazoo River. The ironclad Baron DeKalb jarred loose a detonating rod, igniting a mine, and quickly sank to the bottom of the muddy river. A few days later Union Admiral David Dixon Porter described the device that had sunk the ironclad in a report to his superiors in Washington as “some new invention of the enemy.”

Fretwell and Hunley quickly made their way back to Mobile and shared news of DeKalb’s sinking with other Singer members. Singer himself arrived in Mobile a few days later, just in time to witness the long-awaited launching of their group’s submarine. Soon after its successful trial, General John Slaughter sent a message to General P.G.T. Beauregard in Charleston: “July 31, 1863. My Dear General: This will be handed you by Messrs. B. Watson and B.A. Whitney, the inventors of a Submarine boat which they desire to submit to you for examination.…So far as I am able to judge I can see no reason why it should not answer all our sanguine expectations.”

Actually, word of the submarine’s existence had already reached Beauregard by way of Brown, who had recently been transferred to Charleston. Fretwell had briefed Brown about the submarine some weeks earlier. Upon hearing of the secret weapon, Beauregard dispatched a telegram to Mobile: “August 2, 1863. General Maury: Commander Brown C.S.N. informs me Mr. Fretwell has a submarine boat which could be used here successfully. If so please order, with consent of owners, transportation for it and party to work it.” Beauregard didn’t know that Whitney and Watson were already en route to Charleston, hoping to meet him.

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