William W. Fraser (March 7, 1844 – February 9, 1915) was a Union Army soldier during the American Civil War.

The plan called for a storming party of volunteers to build a bridge across a moat and plant scaling ladders against the enemy embankment in advance of the main attack.

The volunteers knew the odds were against survival and the mission was called, in nineteenth-century vernacular, a "forlorn hope".

Despite repeated attacks by the main Union body, the men of the forlorn hope were unable to retreat until nightfall.

The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Private William W. Fraser, United States Army, for gallantry in the charge of the volunteer storming party on 22 May 1863, while serving with Company I, 97th Illinois Infantry, in action at Vicksburg, Mississippi.