He distinguished himself in this ship when she went to the aid of the chartered government transport Governor off the coast of South Carolina on the night of 2–3 November 1861.

Watson managed the cables and hawsers which held the two ships together in spite of a violent gale, allowing some 500 men—Marines and crew—to clamber from the foundering Governor to safety in Sabine.

His commanding officer, Captain Cadwalader Ringgold, praised Watson for his "indefatigable exertions" and "utmost skill and efficiency" in keeping the two ships lashed together.

Watson served in a number of sea and shore billets into the 1880s, including duty as executive officer of the steam sloop Alaska; the post of inspector of ordnance at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California; command of Wyoming when that warship carried the American exhibit to the Paris Exposition of 1878; and governor of the Naval Home at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The battleship served as his flagship during the subsequent Battle of Santiago, Cuba, on 3 July 1898, in which the Spanish squadron under Admiral Pascual Cervera was destroyed.