She patrolled waters off the Virgin Islands, Barbados, Tobago, Trinidad, and Curaçao protecting Union commerce.

There, Ticonderoga received a telegram on 10 July ordering her to track down and destroy the marauding Confederate raider CSS Florida.

Ticonderoga participated in the first, unsuccessful attempt to take Fort Fisher, North Carolina, on 24 and 25 December, losing eight men killed and 20 wounded on the first day of the assault when a 100-pounder Parrott rifle exploded.

The vessel was extensively repaired in 1870 and reported for duty with the South Atlantic Squadron at Rio de Janeiro on 23 August 1871.

Ticonderoga was recommissioned on 5 November 1878 and ordered to embark upon a cruise around the world, Commodore Robert Wilson Shufeldt commanding.

Ticonderoga sailed eastward from Hampton Roads on 7 December and stopped at ports including Madeira, Monrovia, Cape Town, Aden, Bombay, Penang, Singapore, Manila, Hong Kong, Nagasaki, Fusan, Honolulu, and San Francisco.