An attempt was made on July 11 to assault the fort, the First Battle of Fort Wagner, but it was repulsed with heavy losses to the attackers because of artillery and musket fire.
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Surrounding the fort was a shallow moat riveted with sharpened palmetto logs, as abatis, and the moat on the seaward side had planks with spikes positioned beneath the water.
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The more famous Second Battle of Fort Wagner, which involved an assault by the 54th Massachusetts, would be fought on July 18.
On July 18, 1863, Brigadier General George Crockett Strong ordered an attack by Chatfield in cooperation with Haldimand S. Putnam, Quincy Adams Gillmore, Robert Gould Shaw, and Truman Seymour on Confederate Fort Wagner on Morris Island, South Carolina south of the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina.
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.