Following the battle of Malvern Hill Colonel Howell and the 85th Pennsylvania were transferred to North Carolina serving under the XVIII Corps.

At one point during the siege, Howell was wounded in the head when a Confederate artillery shell from Fort Wagner hit the bombproof he was in.

Howell led his brigade during the Bermuda Hundred Campaign and the early stages of the Siege of Petersburg where he was occasionally in command of a division.

His injuries proved to be mortal and Colonel Howell died in the field hospital of the 85th Pennsylvania on September 14, 1864, three days after his 58th birthday.

In the fall of 1864 the 32nd U.S.Colored Infantry constructed fortifications on Hilton Head Island to protect the Freedmen's town of Mitchelville.