The second battle of Charleston Harbor, also known as the siege of Charleston Harbor, the siege of Fort Wagner, or the battle of Morris Island, took place during the American Civil War in the late summer of 1863 between a combined U.S. Army/Navy force and the Confederate defenses of Charleston, South Carolina.
After being repulsed twice while trying to take Fort Wagner by storm, Maj. Gen. Quincy Adams Gillmore decided on a less costly approach and began laying siege to the fort.
In the days immediately following the second battle of Fort Wagner, Union forces besieged the Confederate works on Morris Island with an array of military novelties. Union gunners made use of a new piece of artillery known as the Requa gun—25 rifle barrels mounted on a field carriage. While sappers dug zig-zag trenches toward Fort Wagner a second novelty was used—the calcium floodlight. Bright lights were flashed upon the defenders, blinding them enough to decrease accurate return fire while the Union gunners fired safely from behind the lights
The Confederate defenders also had advantages. The ground the Union sappers were digging through was shallow sand with a muddy base. The trenching efforts also began to accidentally uncover Union dead from the previous assaults on Fort Wagner. Disease and bad water plagued soldiers on both sides.
The Union army maintained a constant rotation of soldiers to man the forward trenches of the "grand guard". During the evening of August 16, a Confederate artillery shell burst through the bombproof building serving as the headquarters for Colonel Joshua B. Howell, commanding officer of the grand guard that evening. A shell fragment struck Colonel Howell, wounding him severely in the head. Despite Howell's quick recovery, the incident prompted the Union commander to exclusively use veteran troops in the forward trenches. The Confederates also kept a constant rotation of soldiers through Fort Wagner and Battery Gregg. During the night, rowboats would bring fresh troops from the mainland to replace the garrison. Even though they had won a substantial victory at Fort Wagner, the Confederates fully expected the campaign to continue. Having a large garrison to draw from Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard was prepared to continue the campaign. Immediately in command of the Confederate forces surrounding Charleston was former career army officer and South Carolina businessman Roswell S. Ripley. Ripley's forces were spread throughout the fortifications surrounding Charleston Harbor and included a division of the local South Carolina militia. Gilmore and Admiral John A. Dahlgren requested reinforcements from General-in-Chief Henry Halleck. Halleck was reluctant but a division from the Army of the Potomac was transferred to the south under George H. Gordon. General John G. Foster, Union commander of the Department of North Carolina, enthusiastically sent a division of reinforcements telling Gilmore "Charleston is too important to be lost when so nearly won".
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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