A Fallen Soldier, Assault on Fort Wagner, July, 1863
National Museum of Health and Medicine, Silver Spring, Maryland. This skull belonged to a soldier of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers, an African-American unit that took part in a July 1863 assault on Fort Wagner in Charleston Harbor. He was killed by an iron canister ball from one of the fort's two 12-pound field howitzers. The regiment sustained 272 killed, wounded, and missing during the attack. The assault on Fort Wagner was the subject of the 1989 movie "Glory."
A Fallen Soldier, Assault on Fort Wagner, July, 1863
National Museum of Health and Medicine, Silver Spring, Maryland. This skull belonged to a soldier of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers, an African-American unit that took part in a July 1863 assault on Fort Wagner in Charleston Harbor. He was killed by an iron canister ball from one of the fort's two 12-pound field howitzers. The regiment sustained 272 killed, wounded, and missing during the attack. The assault on Fort Wagner was the subject of the 1989 movie "Glory."