The ship was ordered as part of a program to strengthen Prussia's coastal defense forces, then oriented against neighboring Denmark.

The Jäger class of gunboats came about as a result of a program to strengthen the Prussian Navy in the late 1850s in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Reichsflotte and in the midst of rising tensions with Denmark.

[2] The ship was commissioned in late 1860 for a brief period of sea trials, after which she was moved to Stralsund, where she was laid up at the nearby island of Dänholm.

On 8 December 1863, the Prussian Navy ordered the fleet to mobilize, as tensions between Prussia and Denmark over the Schleswig–Holstein question rose sharply.

[7] The ships of I Flotilla were deployed on 17 March to support Captain Eduard von Jachmann's corvettes as they attempted to break the Danish blockade, but the gunboats were only lightly engaged during the ensuing Battle of Jasmund.

Nevertheless, as the Danish steam frigate Tordenskjold arrived to reinforce the main squadron, Scorpion and the other gunboats fired on her from afar.

As the Danes continued south in pursuit of Jachmann's ships, the gunboats withdrew back to Stralsund, though they had to take Hay under tow after her engines broke down.

She was recommissioned on 24 July, and then sent through the Eider Canal to the North Sea, where she was assigned to the squadron defending the Prussian naval base at Wilhelmshaven.