She performed blockade duty in the Hampton Roads-Virginia Capes area, and on the night of 10 June joined a flotilla under Rear Admiral Samuel Phillips Lee in an expedition up the James River to assist Army troops.

Returning to Newport News two days later, she resumed blockade duty until sent back up the James with seven other Union warships to threaten Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital.

In the wake of the Battle of Gettysburg, the movement was designed to divert Confederate strength from General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia which had invaded the North and imperiled Washington, D.C.

The expedition caused the South to evacuate Fort Powhatan, leaving no defenses on the James below Chaffin's or Drewry's Bluffs, some 8 miles (13 km) from Richmond.

In 1895, she was taken to League Island and repaired, and on 18 April 1898 was recommissioned under Lieutenant R. G. Peek for coastal defense and stationed off the New England coast for the duration of the Spanish–American War.