The Second Battle of Fort Wagner, also known as the Second Assault on Morris Island or the Battle of Fort Wagner, Morris Island, was fought on July 18, 1863, during the American Civil War. Union Army troops commanded by Brig. Gen. Quincy Gillmore launched an unsuccessful assault on the Confederate fortress of Fort Wagner, which protected Morris Island, south of Charleston Harbor. The battle occurred one week after the First Battle of Fort Wagner. Although it was a Confederate victory, the valor of the black Union soldiers was widely praised. This had long-term strategic benefits by encouraging more African Americans to enlist, affording the Union a manpower resource that the Confederacy could not match for the remainder of the war.
Fort Wagner, or Battery Wagner as it was known to the Confederates, controlled the southern approaches to Charleston Harbor. It was commanded by Brigadier General William B. Taliaferro. On July 10 and 11, 1863, in the First Battle of Fort Wagner, the Union army assaulted the fort but was repulsed, suffering heavy losses from artillery and musket fire. Brigadier General Quincy Gillmore intended to repeat his assault, but first executed feints to distract the Confederates' attention, at the Battle of Grimball's Landing on July 16. Gillmore also ordered an artillery bombardment of the fort. The fort was on a very narrow island so the Union could assault it only with one regiment at a time.
The approach to the fort was constricted to a strip of beach 60 yards (55 m) wide with the ocean to the east and the marsh from Vincent's (now Bass) Creek to the west. Upon rounding this defile, the Union army was presented with the 250-yard south face of Fort Wagner, which stretched from Vincent's creek to the sea. Surrounding the fort was a shallow moat riveted with sharpened palmetto logs, an abatis, and the moat on the seaward side had planks with spikes positioned beneath the water. The armament of Fort Wagner on the night of July 18 consisted of one 10-inch seacoast mortar, two 32 lb. carronades, two 8-inch shell guns, two 32 lb. howitzers, a 42 lb. carronade,Carronade and an 8-inch seacoast mortar on the land face. Company A of the 1st South Carolina Artillery also had two guns positioned outside of Wagner's southern face by Vincent's creek to provide enfilading fire. The sea face of Wagner was armed with one 32 lb. carronade, one 10-inch Columbiad, and two 12 lb. howitzers. The garrison of Battery Wagner consisted of the 1st South Carolina Artillery, the Charleston Battalion, the 31st North Carolina, and the 51st North Carolina.
Gillmore ordered his siege guns and mortars to begin a bombardment of the fort on July 18 and they were joined by the naval gunfire from six monitors that pulled to within 300 yards of the fort. The bombardment lasted eight hours, but caused little damage against the sandy walls of the fort, and in all, killed only about 8 men and wounded an additional 20, as the defenders had taken cover in the bombproof shelter.
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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