July 18 was the 145th anniversary of the assault on Fort Wagner by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.  The regiment is commemorated by the memorial by Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Boston Common and may be best known from the movie Glory.

"On July 18, 1863, on Morris Island, near Charleston, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, a Union regiment composed entirely of free African-American men, began their assault on Fort Wagner, a Confederate stronghold.

After the war, a sergeant of the 54th, William Harvey Carney, became the first African-American to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for taking up the fallen Union flag and carrying it to the fort’s walls.

Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the commander of the regiment, was killed in the charge, along with 116 of his men, and the Union forces failed to capture the fortress. Shaw, an abolitionist born to a prominent Boston family, had been recruited by Massachusetts Gov. John Andrew to raise and command the all-black regiment, the first of its kind in the Civil War."  (Image:  Storming of Ft. Wagner:  Kurz and Allison (1890):  Wikimedia).