Upon her commissioning, Victoria was assigned to Rear Admiral Louis M. Goldsborough's North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and left New York, bound for Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 17 March 1862.

The first successful capture was the steamer Nassau and her cargo of Enfield rifles and ammunition, seized by Victoria and USS State of Georgia off Confederate Fort Caswell, North Carolina, on 28 May.

She immediately resumed her routine patrol and reconnaissance activities and, on 25 December, prevented an unidentified blockade-running steamer from landing ashore below the Cape Fear River, North Carolina.

After another unsuccessful pursuit of a blockade runner on the night of the 24th, USS William Bacon and Victoria seized the blockade-running British steamer Nicolai I off Cape Fear, North Carolina, on 21 March.

During the remainder of the year, Victoria's already fragile structural condition steadily deteriorated, prompting her disgruntled captain to complain in August that the vessel was unfit to remain with the blockade off Wilmington.