With an assailable coastline measuring some 3,500 miles and numerous waterways leading deep into the Southern heartland, the newly formed Confederacy was hard pressed to defend its territory from a federal government with vastly superior maritime resources. The South was thus forced to turn to unorthodox forms of warfare, and one of these involved Confederate financing of destructive underwater devices.

Of the various secret service groups organized and deployed by the Confederate government during the American Civil War, none was more energetic, ingenious, or successful than the group headed by Texan Edgar Collins Singer. The underwater contact mine perfected and patented by Singer so impressed Confederate government leaders that he and his group of engineers, agents, and operatives (known as the Singer Secret Service Corps) were called away from their artillery unit stationed along the Texas Coast and relocated to the Confederate capitol of Richmond.

Singer's Secret Service Corps started out as a small group of Masons in Port Lavaca, Texas, and was composed of a rag-tag group of men possessing a variety of skills. Steam engineers, machinists, attorneys, jewelers, tinkers, and gunsmiths were all represented in the founding members. The corps' primary mission, deploying the underwater mines, eventually led to other destructive inventions such as the Hunley submarine and railroad sabotage behind enemy lines. During the last two years of the war, the corps developed and deployed inventions ranging from ironclad torpedo boats and submarine vessels to underwater weaponry and explosive devices, all far superior to anything previously seen. Even the famous ironclad monitor Tecumseh fell prey to the group's inventions.

To bring to light this previously untold story swirling around the Hunley and those who built, deployed, and ultimately died in the vessel, author Mark K. Ragan pored through previously unpublished archival documents. The submarine expert and nautical historian here presents a work that finally tells the story of the Southern secret agents of the Civil War.