the blockade off Wilmington later in July in a convoy consisting of the side-wheel steamer and four tugboats. While deployed on patrol and reconnaissance duty off Wilmington, Vicksburg unsuccessfully chased a blockade-running side-wheel steamer on the night of 6 August and another on the night of 23 August which she found aground at daylight the next morning. The gunboat underwent repairs soon thereafter and spent September making an extensive survey of Confederate Fort Fisher and of other Southern land defenses in the Cape Fear River. After completing this mission on 10 October, she assisted in the capture of the new, steel-hulled, blockade-running British steamer Bat off the Cape Fear River and, on 20 October and 24 October, participated in two unsuccessful nighttime chases of blockade-running steamers in the same area. Vicksburg remained off the Cape Fear River for the duration of the year and, on 26 December, assisted in covering the evacuation of troops after the unsuccessful first attack upon Fort Fisher on 24 December and 25 December. Vicksburg began the final year of the war assisting Union forces in mop-up operations following the fall of Fort Fisher during a second amphibious assault which took place between 13 January and 15 January 1865. She also participated in the bombardment of Half Moon Battery, situated on the coastal flank of the Confederate defense line which crossed Cape Fear Peninsula six miles above Fort Fisher, on 11 February. On 22 February, she was ordered north to Hampton Roads. In March, Vicksburg was one of several vessels sent to White House, Virginia, to support General Ulysses Grant's siege of Richmond by keeping open navigation between White House and the mouth of the York River. With the end of the Civil War in April 1865, Vicksburg was decommissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 29 April and sold at auction to C. C. & H. Cable on 12 July. She was documented for merchant service on 7 August 1865. Her name last appeared on lists of merchant vessels in the autumn of 1868. See also Union Navy References Ships of the Union Navy Ships built in Mystic, Connecticut Steamships of the United States Navy Gunboats of the United States Navy American Civil War patrol vessels of the United States 1863 ships