Upon returning home, she underwent repairs and alterations before commissioning on 12 October 1850, Captain Josiah Tattnall III in command.

Reactivated on 15 September, the ship sailed for New York City to embark the Chevalier de Sodre, the Brazilian minister to the United States, and got underway again on 5 October to return the distinguished diplomat home.

After the Confederacy had collapsed, Saranac cruised at sea in search of Southern cruiser, Shenandoah, which remained a menace to Union shipping until belatedly learning of the end of the war.

She operated in that region until she was wrecked at 8.40 a.m. on 18 June 1875 on the submerged Ripple Rock in Seymour Narrows[2] off Campbell River, British Columbia, while on a mission to collect natural curiosities for the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.

Her bow was immediately run into the Vancouver Island shore and made fast with a hawser to a tree, but within an hour she had sunk completely from sight.