She was on her maiden voyage from London, headed ultimately for Wilmington, North Carolina, carrying cargo from the United Kingdom to help the Confederates.

Captain Pittman was in command of the vessel, and saw her safely across a rough Atlantic Ocean as far as Bermuda, where he planned to stop to take on coal before departing for Wilmington.

The ship hit the reef of Bermuda's north shore, in an area known as the Western Blue Cut, on 30 December 1863.

Once the vessel was known to be in distress, a boat from St Georges went to the scene, and while much of the cargo and the entire crew were saved, Montana was lost, mostly due to a large gash in her side of over 10 feet (3.0 meters).

The wreck is quite compact within the Bermudian reef system to the north west of the island, and it lies in relatively shallow water, at a maximum depth of about thirty feet.