Emilio, Luis F., History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry , 1863-1865

[122] Terry, with proper reserves. Artillery fire was to be kept up until the stormers mounted the parapet. At night the gallant Captain Walker, who was assisted by Captain Pratt, Fifty-fifth Massachusetts, observed that the enemy's sharpshooters fired but scatteringly, and that but one mortar-shell was thrown from Wagner. About 10 P. M. he passed into the ditch and examined it thoroughly. He found a fraise of spears and stakes, of which he pulled up some two hundred. Returning, a flying sap was run along the crest of the glacis, throwing the earth level, to enable assailants to pass over readily.

From early morning Col. L. M. Keitt, the Confederate commander of Morris Island, had been signalling that his force was terribly reduced, the enemy about to assault, and that to save the garrison there should be transportation ready by nightfall of the 6th. He reported his casualties on the 5th as one hundred out of nine hundred; that a repetition of that day's bombardment would leave the work a ruin. He had but four hundred effectives, exclusive of artillerymen. His negro laborers could not be made to work; and thirty or forty soldiers had been wounded that day in attempting to repair damages. General Beauregard, who had been, since the 4th at least, jeopardizing the safety of the brave garrison, then gave the necessary order for evacuation.

A picket detail of one hundred men went out from the Fifty-fourth camp at 5 P. M. on the 6th. Our usual detail was at work in the front under the engineers. It was not until two o'clock on the morning of September 7 that the officers and men of the regiment remaining in camp were aroused, fell into line, and with the colored brigade marched up over the beach line to a point just south of the Beacon