Union troops occupied the town of Beaufort on Port Royal Island and made their headquarters and their main base of supplies on the Island of Hilton Head.
The first charge on Fort Wagner (called Battery Wagner by the Confederates) is described in this book. Wagner was probably the strongest earthwork in the history of modern warfare.
A second charge on Wagner was mounted just one week after the first. This second attack was repulsed. Wagner was finally reduced by siege and occupied by Union troops in September 1863.
NORTH BY NIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
A big Negro was cleaning fish at the end of a spindly pier. He looked up as the two Yankee soldiers came toward him. He watched steadily as they approached but he showed no fear. The hot air shimmered as it rose from the sandy soil and the marsh grass whispered in a light breeze. The midday sun flashed on the water, making the white men draw their eyes into thin horizontal slits.
The taller soldier raised his hand in a casual greeting and stopped before his boots touched the gray, weathered boards of the pier. “Good catch?” he asked.
The Negro stood up slowly and hunched his massive shoulders and looked down at a half-cleaned fish. “Good enough,” he said. Then he raised his head. “I hear talk that most of you are leaving soon.”
The shorter soldier pulled at his red beard. “Soldiers are always on the move,” he said.
“Why must you sail away from here? You buy our vegetables and fish; you rent our boats. It’s good to have you here.”