The cruise was largely uneventful, though there was a diplomatic scuffle with the Sultan of Morocco who refused to recognize the newly appointed American ambassador.

As the ship was being made ready for a second trip to the Mediterranean, the Secretary of the Navy ordered the vessel to Mexico to assist in a show of force off the coast of Vera Cruz.

French Forrest later took command when Dulay fell ill. Other notable officers in this cruise were future Civil War rivals Raphael Semmes and John Winslow.

From Cumberland, Perry was instructed by the Polk Administration to assist settlers fleeing a major Mayan insurrection (known as the Caste War of Yucatán).

With no realistic way to assist the settlers Perry partially ignored the order when Spanish warships arrived from Cuba loaded with guns, bullets, and money.

Cumberland made her second cruise to the Mediterranean from 1849 to 1851. Notable officers on board during the second and third cruises to the Mediterranean included Louis M. Goldsborough, John H. Upshur, Silas Stringham, Andrew A. Harwood, John Worden (future commanding of officer of Monitor), and naval surgeon Dr. Edward Squibb (co-founder of the company now known as Bristol-Myers Squibb).

The ship made visits to La Spezia (the U.S. Navy's new overseas homeport after being expelled from Port Mahon), Naples, Trieste, and Brindisi.

During the third cruise, the ship worked closely with diplomat and early environmentalist George Perkins Marsh who was serving as American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.

Marsh needed Cumberland's help in dealing with zealous Greek priests who were harassing American missionaries, notably Rev.

Abd-ul-Mejid I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, invited Stringham and Marsh for an official visit to determine the position of the U.S. in a possible war with Russia.

The Commodore (Stringham) said to the Captain (Goldsberry), 'Put an Officer in a boat and send him ashore to ask whether they want that salute returned the way they gave.'

Specifically, the shipyard workers removed the spar deck guns and lowered the bulwarks, decreasing the weight of the ship and reducing the crew and supply needs.

Like many U.S. Navy ships in Africa, Cumberland employed a number of Krooman (indigenous Africans who lived on the western coast) to serve as scouts, interpreters, and fishermen.

Cumberland's boarding officer, however, chose not to seize the ship possibly realizing the legal difficulty of bringing slave traders to trial without overwhelming evidence.

At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Cumberland was at the Gosport Navy Yard, with orders to monitor the situation in Norfolk and Portsmouth.

She was towed out of the Yard by the tug Yankee,[3] assisted by the steam sloop Pawnee, escaping destruction when other ships there were scuttled and burned by Union forces on 20 April 1861 to prevent their capture.

The sloop-of-war engaged Confederate forces in several minor actions in Hampton Roads and captured many small ships in the harbor.

[citation needed] One of the men who died aboard Cumberland was Navy chaplain John L. Lenhart, a Methodist minister.

Following the sinking of the Cumberland, the federal government almost immediately solicited work from salvage companies to secure valuable items from the shipwreck.

... ... His [the German diver West's] plan, as told to me, was to start under the stern, which lay down the river, and blow a hole in her and work towards the paymaster's stateroom.

He did the diving himself and did not attempt to get any wreckage save the pieces he blew out of the side and brought up on deck, and the copper bolts cut out.

In 1909, part of Cumberland's anchor chain was recovered and sent to the museum of the Confederacy in Richmond (Newport News Daily Press, 12 November 1909).

UAJV team members consulted local watermen (whose oyster dredges had picked up artifacts for years) to help locate the ships.

Artifacts recovered included fasteners, fittings, apothecary vessels, a ship's bell (from Cumberland), cannon fuses and other ordnance items.

Most of the artifacts from this NUMA/UAJV excavation are on exhibit at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum in Norfolk, VA (Newport News Daily Press, 8 March 1987).