Built during the American Civil War in the hope that she would be purchased by persons planning to break the Union blockade of the South, this iron-hulled, screw steamer was completed in 1862 and sold later that year to Frederic Peter Obicino of London, England.

Devens took Aries via Charleston to Port Royal, South Carolina, where Rear Admiral Samuel Francis DuPont stated that she "...is the most perfect example of a blockade runner we have yet seen – her masts lower in a peculiar way, invented for this very purpose."

He ordered her north for adjudication in admiralty court and, since Devens was ill, detached him from Stettin and placed him in charge of the prize crew for the voyage to Boston, where she was condemned and purchased there by the Navy on 20 May 1863.

To still the clamor of frightened citizens for protection from this "rebel pirate," Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles sent out a number of warships in pursuit of the commerce raider and promised that Aries would soon join them.

On the day of her commissioning, the screw steamer sailed for Port Royal, carrying 200 men: marines to help Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren build up his forces for a renewed attack on Fort Wagner which guarded the seaward approaches to Charleston.

Early in November, as the yard work on Aries was approaching completion, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles ordered Devens to proceed in her to the waters off Wilmington, for duty in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron.

Aries got underway immediately and headed for the stranded blockade runner which soon proved to be the new British, iron-hulled, screw-propelled steamer Ceres which had departed Bermuda on the 3d and had struck bottom while attempting to slip into the Cape Fear River sometime on the night of the 5th and 6th.

Finally – after realizing that, despite the diligent efforts of the Union bluejackets, the flames were gaining on the bucket handlers – the boat parties withdrew from the British blockade runner and returned to their own ship.

When rising water in the grounded and damaged steamer's hull made it clear that the effort could not possibly succeed, the Federal sailors finally left the ship on Christmas Eve.

Shortly after daybreak on 7 January, while his ship was lying within the entrance of Little River, North Carolina, Devens "...discovered a strange steamer standing to the E.S.E., with the Montgomery (1861) in chase of her..." Aries immediately got underway to join in the pursuit and gained on the stranger.

This accuracy prompted the blockade runner to haul "... to the westward..." However, the steamer ran aground close to North Inlet, near Georgetown, South Carolina; and her crew escaped to shore.

High surf thwarted their efforts to refloat the prize, so the boats' crews set the vessel afire and returned to Aries with word that the blockade runner was the Confederate steamer Dare.

On the evening of 10 January, orders reached Lt. Devens to send his boats to assist Iron Age which had run aground that morning while attempting to refloat the stranded blockade runner Bendigo near Lockwood's Folly Inlet.

The following morning, 11 January, Aries joined Minnesota, Daylight, and Governor Buckingham in chasing the blockade runner Ranger which was attempting to enter the Cape Fear River with a cargo from Newcastle upon Tyne, England.

She soon came across "... a fine-looking double propeller blockade runner, resembling Ceres, beached and on fire between Tubb's and Little River Inlets ..." Once more Southern sharpshooters prevented Union parties from boarding the steamer, extinguishing the flames, and taking possession of the prize.

On 14 March, she and State of Georgia drove a large, long, and low side-wheel steamer ashore on the west point of Oak Island, near the Western Bar, off Wilmington.

Their approach to the unidentified potential prize – which resembled the recently captured North Carolina blockade runner A. D. Vance – was ended by shelling from Southern shore batteries.

Nevertheless, despite assistance in the pursuit by Maratanza and Eolus and the blockade runner's being briefly stranded, a rising tide and clever seamanship enabled the steamer to escape to safety in Wilmington.

Dissatisfied with Butler's lack of resolution, Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter – the commander of the naval forces in the operation – pressed Washington, D.C., for a renewed attack.

After supporting mopping up operations in the vicinity of Wilmington for the remainder of January and all of February, Aries departed Hampton Roads on the morning of 5 March and headed for Key West, Florida, to join the East Gulf Blockading Squadron.