Fort Wagner

Named for deceased Lt. Col. Thomas M. Wagner, it was the site of two American Civil War battles in the campaign known as Operations Against the Defenses of Charleston in 1863, in which United States forces took heavy casualties while trying to seize the fort.

Its walls, composed of sand and earth, rose 30 feet (9.1 m) above the level beach and were supported by palmetto logs and sandbags.

It was a large structure capable of sheltering nearly 1,000 of the fort's 1,700-man garrison and provided substantial protection against naval shelling.

It was the Union attack on July 18, 1863, led by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, one of the first major American military units made up of black soldiers.

After enduring almost 60 days of heavy U.S. shelling, the Confederates abandoned it on the night of September 6–7, 1863, withdrawing all operable cannons and the garrison.

The main reason the fort was abandoned was a concern about the loss of the garrison due to artillery fire and the threat of imminent assault.

The 54th was controversial in the North, where many people supported the abolition of slavery but still treated African Americans as lesser or inferior to whites.

Sites include East Florida, Millen and Lawton, Georgia and Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Given the missing at Morris Island is more than double the total unknowns at Beaufort National Cemetery, it appears many bodies were not removed and were lost to the shifting sea and sands.

The final scene portrays Shaw and the men of the 54th Massachusetts leading the attack and storming the fort unsuccessfully.

[2] In the 2017 book Magnus Chase and the Ship of the Dead, a character named T.J. dies charging the battlements at Fort Wagner.

[9] Although the Atlantic Ocean consumed Fort Wagner and the original site is now offshore, the Civil War Trust (a division of the American Battlefield Trust) and its partners have acquired and preserved 118 acres (0.48 km2) of historic Morris Island, which had gun emplacements and other military installations during the war.