Ultimately attached to the Marine detachment of the sidewheeler Powhatan, Wasmuth took part in the assault on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, on 15 January 1865.

The destroyer was launched on 15 September 1920, sponsored by Miss Gertrude E. Bennet, stepdaughter of Lieutenant Colonel R. H. Davis, USMC, an officer on duty at Mare Island.

Operating off Sausalito and Mare Island, the new destroyer completed her trials on 14 March, putting into her builder's yard on that day for post-shakedown repairs.

Wasmuth then spent the next month operating in connection with battleship torpedo practices, a duty broken on 7 May by dispatch service to San Diego.

Placed out of commission at San Diego on 26 July 1922, Wasmuth remained in reserve for nearly eight years during the 1920s, when treaty restrictions and cuts in operating funds reduced the Navy's active seagoing forces.

Ingram C. Sowell in command, Wasmuth operated as a destroyer for the next decade, participating in an intensive slate of tactical exercises and maneuvers, varying that routine with upkeep and training.

While, of course, a great many of those World War I-authorized ships lay in reserve on both coasts, the Navy was expanding as the 1930s had progressed and, in view of ominous developments in Europe and the Far East, was broadening its operational horizons.

Shortly before 0800 on 7 December 1941, planes from six Japanese aircraft carriers swept down upon the fleet units present at Pearl Harbor, in a surprise attack.

One man, Seaman 1st Class James P. Hannon, was given credit for shooting down an Aichi that crashed in a portion of Pearl Harbor on Waipio Peninsula, near Middle Loch just North of Mamala Bay in South Central Oahu.

Five minutes later, Lt. J. W. Leverton, Wasmuth's executive officer, arrived as his ship edged out of Middle Loch, and took command, relieving Lt.

Later that afternoon, Wasmuth and Zane swept the Pearl Harbor entrance channel before the former anchored at the coal docks when her sweep wire parted.

Reaching Kodiak, Alaska, on 20 August, the high-speed minesweeper spent the remainder of her career in this region as part of Task Force 8, performing screen and escort duties for the supply ships necessary to bear the "beans, bullets, and black oil" to that theater.

In the course of her operations that autumn and winter, the ship visited such picturesquely named places as Women's Bay, Dutch Harbor, Nome, and Kodiak.

Two days after Christmas of 1942, Wasmuth was escorting a convoy through a heavy Alaskan storm when two depth charges were wrenched from their tracks by the pounding sea, fell over the side, and exploded beneath the ship's fantail.

For three and a half hours, the tanker remained with the sinking high-speed minesweeper, battling the waves while successfully transferring her crew and two passengers.