The Battle of Olustee was indeed one of the bloodiest in terms of casualties

Another fact is that the Battle of Olustee was indeed one of the bloodiest in terms of casualties. Union casualties totaled 203 soldiers killed, 1,152 wounded, and 506 missing, for a total of 1,861 men (about 34%). Confederate casualties were lower: 93 dead, 847 wounded, and 6 missing, for a total of 946 casualties (approximately 19%). Union forces also lost six pieces of artillery and 39 captive horses. With 265 casualties per 1,000 troops, this battle was the Union's second bloodiest of the war. Soldiers on both sides had seen the great battles in the eastern and western theaters of war, but many of them wrote in letters and diaries that they had never seen such horrific fighting. The Confederate dead were interred at nearby Lake City's Oaklawn Cemetery.

The 54th Massachusetts was ordered to countermarch back to Ten-Mile Station on February 22, when the Union forces were still retiring to Jacksonville. The locomotive of a train carrying wounded Union soldiers had broken down, putting the wounded in jeopardy. When the 54th Massachusetts arrived, the soldiers tied ropes to the engine and coaches and manually hauled the train three miles to Camp Finegan, where horses were secured to assist in pulling the train. Following that, the train was pulled by both men and horses for a total distance of 10 miles to Jacksonville (16 km). The train took 42 hours to travel that distance.