24. The 54th Massachusetts returned to South Carolina after the Florida expedition
In 1864 the 54th returned to operations in and around Charleston Harbor. In November, 1864, the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiments were part of an operation to sever the Charleston and Savannah Railroad in support of General William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea. At Honey Hill, the Union troops encountered an entrenched Confederate force defending the railroad and several attacks proved that the Confederate position was too strong to be carried. Both the 54th and 55th were engaged in the fighting, which proved to be a defensive Confederate victory. The 54th withdrew to its position at Hilton Head.
In April 1865, the 54th saw its last action of the war several days after the surrender of Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, and just four days after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The 54th engaged with Confederate troops, again in fortified positions near the town of Boykin, South Carolina. The battle, which was a sharply contested skirmish, ended when the 54th drove the Confederates from their position. Of the fifteen casualties sustained by the regiment in the action two were fatalities, including Lieutenant E. L. Stevens, the last Union officer to lose his life in the Civil War.