Construction of Fort Howell began under the 32nd U.S. Colored Infantry and was completed by the 144th New York Infantry. The 500-man 32nd Colored Infantry was organized at Camp William Penn in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in March 1864 from volunteers from Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, and unlike many other U.S. Colored Troops, which were made up mostly of former slaves, the 32nd was almost entirely free blacks. Under Colonel George W. Baird, the regiment was ordered to Hilton Head in 1864, and from August to mid-October its troops built Fort Howell's 23-foot-high earthen ramparts with picks, spades, and axes. As the fort neared completion, the 32nd was redeployed to various locations on Hilton Head and throughout the Department of the South, and the regiment was mustered out in Philadelphia in August 1865. Work on the fort was completed in November 1864 by fatigue details from the 144th New York Infantry, which had reported to Hilton Head in June 1864. Organized in Delhi, New York, in 1862, the 144th first served in the defense of Washington and later on Folly Island during the siege of Charleston, where it suffered many casualties in battle and from disease, before serving elsewhere in South Carolina after finishing Fort Howell and being mustered out on Hilton Head in June 1865. In August 1864, Colonel Baird was also charged with establishing an encampment for the 32nd near the fort site and not far from Mitchelville. Named Camp Baird, this encampment sent work details each day to the engineer officer overseeing the project under the overall supervision of Captain Charles Suter. The camp stood on what is now a golf course at Palmetto Hall. Before development there in the 1990s, an historical and archaeological investigation of Camp Baird and Fort Howell uncovered tent locations, latrines, and a garbage dump, along with artifacts including buttons, jewelry, coin, marbles, buckles, pots, pans, and inkwells that provide a portrait of soldiers who used leisure time to read and improve their writing skills for life after the war.