Direct assaults on Battery Wagner.
The surprised Confederates discovered at dawn of July 24, 1863, the new line thrown forward from Battery Reynolds and the naval battery on the first Union parallel.
Two direct assaults on Battery Wagner having been repulsed with great loss of life, the advance upon the work was made by a series of parallels.
The batteries were ready in sixty hours from the time of breaking ground, most of the work being done in the night during heavy rains.
The second parallel, six hundred yards in advance, was established July 23d, by a flying-sap along the narrow strip of shifting sand.
The moon was so bright until midnight that no work could be done, but from twelve till dawn a parapet ten feet thick and one hundred seventy-five feet long was completed, six howitzers were placed, an entanglement was put up a hundred yards in advance, and a large bomb-proof magazine finished in the center of an old graveyard.
Slowly but surely the
Federal forces were working their way to the northern end of
Morris Island.
 | |
Battery Reynolds, on the first parallel against Battery Wagner |
|  | |
Sailors in the naval battery |
|  | |
Battery brown, on the second parallel |
|
