[5] Chambers was an unabashed support of Lincoln not only due to his own position as Navy agent but also because his aged father had been made superintendent of warehouses for the Philadelphia customs service.

The schooner sailed from Philadelphia 6 days later and joined the Gulf Blockading Squadron at Ship Island, Mississippi, 23 January 1862.

Her diligent service in the Gulf of Mexico and off the Florida coast was first rewarded on 23 August when she captured blockade-running schooner Corelia with a cargo of supplies badly needed by the South.

James S. Chambers scored again on 4 March 1863—the second anniversary of Lincoln's inauguration—when men from her whaleboats boarded and took Spanish sloop Relampago with a cargo of coffee, liquors, and soldiers shoes.

The following morning men from James S. Chambers boarded the wreck, a schooner of pilot boat-build, and identified her as Ida.

A fortnight later, her boat crews raided and destroyed extensive Confederate salt works and stockpiles at Palmetto Point, South Carolina.