Victory was one of the lightly armor-plated gunboats of the Mississippi Squadron called "tinclads" which were used during the Civil War for shallow water patrol and reconnaissance duty on the Tennessee, Ohio, and Cumberland rivers.

On the day of Victory's commissioning, 8 July, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan crossed the Ohio River into Indiana at the head of a 2,460-man raiding party.

While Victory and three of the gunboats remained scattered downstream on the 19th to prevent the raiding party from doubling back, the Federals finally trapped Morgan at Buffington Island and forced him to attempt a crossing.

On 14 April 1864, she helped to repulse a raid upon Paducah, Kentucky; and—on 4 November, as part of a squadron of six gunboats—aided the successful defense from a carefully staged attack on Johnsonville, Tennessee, led by the famed Confederate cavalryman, Lt. Gen. Nathan B. Forrest.

After the Confederacy collapsed, Victory was decommissioned at Mound City, Illinois, on 30 June 1865 and sold at public auction there to W. Thorwegen on 17 August.