He was appointed Volunteer Acting Assistant Paymaster and Clerk in the United States Navy on 19 September 1862 during the American Civil War.

While attached to USS Satellite on the Potomac in December 1862, he led a boat expedition ashore, captured a small party of Confederates, and destroyed signal and recruiting stations.

He remained in the Navy after the war, serving in United States ports, the South Atlantic and Pacific stations, and at Nagasaki, Japan, until retiring with the grade of Pay Inspector on 25 September 1893.

Stevenson commenced shakedown in late December immediately after commissioning, but, on 4 February 1943, she collided with SS Berwind Vale off Newport, Rhode Island, losing part of her bow.

For the next five months she took part in the leap-frogging assaults along the New Guinea coast, participating in the landings in Humboldt Bay in April, at Wakde in May, and at Sansapor and Noemfoor in July.

On 5 June, she weathered a typhoon; by the end of the war, she was operating within 200 miles (370 km) of the Japanese coast to support Admiral William F. Halsey's carriers.