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

Admiral Dahlgren records that on the 4th, with General Foster, he reconnoitred the enemy's position from a point on John's Island across the Stono, ‘right opposite Pringle, in full view seventeen or eighteen hundred yards off.’ He recommended that a heavy battery be there established to enfilade the James Island lines; but it was not done. Our naval vessels fired slowly all that night.

General Hatch, on the 4th, moved on the road toward the Stono, making but six miles. He rested at a plantation where the road from Legareville came into the one that he was following. It was a terribly hot forenoon; little water could be found, and scores of men were sunstruck or fainted from fatigue and thirst. At this halting-place the force from General Schimmelfennig joined General Hatch. As it was feared many musket-charges had been spoiled by the rain of the previous day, all the regiments on James Island were marched to the front at 9 A. M., on the 5th, and discharged their pieces at the enemy. There was some light skirmishing. A few shells came over the line from Secessionville without damage. Our foe was busy erecting an earthwork and extending his trenches, seriously interfered with by the huge eleven and fifteen-inch shells of the navy and the fire of twelve-pounders from the decks of the monitors.

On the 5th the position of the Fifty-fourth was changed to the centre of General Schimmelfennig's line, which it held with the Thirty-third United States Colored Troops, both regiments under Lieutenant-Colonel Hooper's command.