New Era arrived off Columbus, Kentucky, 24 December 1862 to support the Union army garrison there threatened by a large Confederate force.

Confederate possession of Columbus would have seriously disrupted the flow of supplies to the Union fleet and troops then operating against Vicksburg, Mississippi.

On 11 January, Rear Adm. David Dixon Porter ordered New Era to take on board, from Baron de Kalb and Cincinnati, men wounded during the expedition for transportation to a hospital ship at the mouth of the White River; then to proceed to Island No.

Her duty on the upper Mississippi River bore striking resemblance to that of ships on "Operation Market Time" patrol off Vietnam more than a century later.

Though Fort Pillow was captured by the Confederates, and a large portion of its USCT garrison were massacred, New Era remained in the area to pick up survivors of the battle.

Over the next two days, the gunboat continued to intermittently shell the woods near Fort Pillow, to dissuade the Confederates from establishing a battery or burning a number of barges along the river bank.