DUANE
Duane's take
The way I heard it, this comes straight off the official marker — so let me tell it true. February of 1863. The War Between the States is grinding on, and somewhere along the shores of Lavaca Bay, a local inventor named E.
G. Singer is doing something that most folks would call either genius or madness — probably both. He's testing a torpedo.
Not just any torpedo, mind you, but one fitted with a unique spring action ignition system. His own design. Right there on the Texas coast.
Now Singer didn't come to this alone. He had nine other Lavaca citizens backing him, including his financial partner, a man by the name of Dr. J.
R. Fretwell, and a Captain David A. Bradbury.
That partnership must have impressed someone in the right places, because Singer received authority to provide this new technology to Confederate forces in the vicinity. And Captain Bradbury — he was soon placed in charge of Confederate torpedo operations altogether. Out of Lavaca, an experimental torpedo works got to work manufacturin' several types of underwater and land mine torpedoes.
They weren't just sittin' on the shelf, either. These devices were quickly installed in rivers throughout the South — the Yazoo River up in Mississippi, Mobile Bay down in Alabama. The reach of what started on a Texas bay shore stretched across the whole Confederacy.
And closer to home, Singer's torpedo mines were instrumental in the defense of the Matagorda Bay area throughout 1863. One inventor, one bay, one spring-action idea — and the reverberations went all the way to Mississippi and Alabama. That's the kind of story Lavaca doesn't let you forget.
What the marker says
In February 1863, local inventor E. G. Singer developed and tested a torpedo with a unique spring action ignition system on the shores of Lavaca Bay. With nine other Lavaca citizens including Singer's financial partner Dr. J. R. Fretwell and Captain David A. Bradbury, who was soon placed in charge of Confederate torpedo operations, Singer received authority to provide the new technology to Confederate forces in the vicinity. Several types of underwater and land mine torpedoes were manufactured at the experimental torpedo works in Lavaca. The devices were quickly installed in rivers throughout the South, including the Yazoo in Mississippi, and in Mobile Bay in Alabama. Singer's torpedo mines were instrumental in the defense of the Matagorda Bay area throughout 1863. (1998)