During the first years of the Civil War, the Federal War Department used Lavinia Logan—a chartered stern-wheel steamer built in 1861 at Parkersburg, Virginia (now West Virginia)—to support operations of the Union Army along the streams of the Mississippi River drainage system, especially Major General Ulysses S. Grant's efforts to capture the Confederate river fortress at Vicksburg, Mississippi.

The vessel's Navy service did not prove nearly as successful as her duty with the Army, amounting to only some six weeks on patrol without action before chronic flooding caused her total loss in a forced beaching.

Apparently, he had acquired the ship to meet Rear Admiral Farragut's need for light-draft gunboats and had her hull covered with iron plates by naval shipfitters at Mound City, Illinois.

Antelope first appears on the list of vessels composing the West Gulf Blockading Squadron on 15 August 1864 with the notation that she was then at New Orleans, Louisiana.

On the evening of 22 September, during her trip upriver, Antelope came upon the Army transport Suffolk—abandoned and in a sinking condition—and towed her to shoal water where she would be safe on the flats.