On the morning of 6 January 1863, the Union screw steamer Pocahontas sighted a ship in the Gulf of Mexico, steaming westward close to the Alabama shore and headed toward the entrance to Mobile Bay.

Soon after the blockader had turned to intercept the stranger lest she reach the protection of the Southern guns at Fort Morgan—then some nine miles away—the unidentified steamer altered her own course in an effort to escape.

Upon commissioning, the steamer began operations on the lower Mississippi River as a dispatch vessel, working primarily between New Orleans and Port Hudson, Louisiana.

This duty was extremely important at this time because Rear Admiral David Farragut in Hartford had dashed upstream past the Confederate batteries at Port Hudson, Louisiana, and was patrolling the river between that Southern stronghold and Vicksburg, Mississippi, to support Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter's joint operations with Major General Ulysses S. Grant's troops in the first effort to open the complete Mississippi River to Union shipping.

However, shortly before 4 o'clock the following morning, she collided with Sciota, sinking that screw gunboat in 12 feet of water about eight miles upriver from Quarantine, Louisiana.

While the Union officer was returning to his ship in the Mexican boat Margarita, a band of armed men on the Texas shore threatened to open fire on that craft if it did not head for the bank.

Acting Master Spiro V. Bennis, Antona's executive officer learned of Chase's misfortune from a passing English ship and remained in the vicinity until he had verified the report.

On the 6th, Antona—then under command of Acting Master Lyman Wells—captured Betsy some 16 miles southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, flying English colors and purportedly from Matamoras to New Orleans with a general cargo.

Antona arrived off the mouth of the Rio Grande on the 8th and reembarked Chase who had been released by Brigadier General Hamilton P. Bee, CSA—who commanded Confederate troops in Texas—because of his having been captured in neutral waters.

This ship had departed Veracruz, Mexico, with a widely varied general cargo including a large quantity of liquor and was purportedly heading for New Orleans.