Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Regiment attacks Fort Wagner in South Carolina.

Capt. Robert Gould Shaw Jr. and 245 other Union soldiers are killed and another 800 are wounded or missing in the attack of the fort in Charleston Harbor. Lawrence Lader subsequently writes, “It was almost as if Shaw had been offered up by the Puritan conscience as its final sacrifice against slavery.” Among the survivors is Sgt. William Carney of New Bedford, who becomes the first African-American awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1900. After the battle, the soldiers continue to fight, while refusing to accept a salary lower than that paid to white soldiers until Congress increases their pay retroactively in July 1864. A memorial to the unit is installed in Boston in 1897.*