On May 24, 1864, she dueled with Pratt's Texas Battery while on the Mississippi River, and on November 4 of that same year, was near the action of the Battle of Johnsonville but was unable to join the fighting.

[1] On December 17, she was purchased by the Union Navy for military service in the American Civil War,[1] at a cost of $21,500 while the vessel was at Cincinnati, Ohio.

[2] Curlew became a tinclad,[5] a variant of the ironclad warship with only light metal armor,[6] and was assigned the identification number 12, to be painted on her pilothouse.

Leaving Mound City on March 12, she took members of the United States Coast Survey to Grand Gulf, Mississippi.

The Confederate artillerymen and the Union gunboat dueled for about 20 to 35 minutes, with Curlew taking several hits and firing 28 shots.

The narrowness of the Tennessee River at that location and Confederate shore fire prevented Curlew and the other five would-be relief ships from rescuing Key West, Tawah, and Elfin, and the latter three were destroyed.

[15] From February 1865 to mid-June of that year, Curlew was tasked with making surveys of the river near Cairo and Mound City.