It served at Norfolk and Portsmouth in the Department of Virginia and North Carolina until January 1864, during which time the unit participated in Brigadier General Edward A.

The regiment participated in the capture of City Point, Virginia, on May 4, 1864, and while in the city the regiment served fatigue duty, built Fort Converse on the Appomattox River, defended an attack against Fort Converse on May 20, and took part in Brigadier General Benjamin F. Butler's operations on the south side of the James River and against Petersburg and Richmond.

Four men of the regiment received the Medal of Honor for their actions at Chaffin's Farm: Powhatan Beaty, James H. Bronson, Milton M. Holland, and Robert Pinn.

General Benjamin F. Butler remarked "[s]o far as the conduct of the color-sergeant, (Milton M.) Holland, was concerned, in the charge at New Market Heights, had it been within my power I would have conferred upon him in view of it, a brigadier-generalship for gallantry on the field.

With the end of the war at hand, the men of the regiment witnessed the surrender of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston and his army at Bennett Place, North Carolina, on April 26, 1865.