at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, for repairs on 1 November 1860. Civil War She returned to active duty on 10 April 1861, just two days before General Beauregard's bombardment of Fort Sumter opened hostilities between the North and the South. Steaming via Key West, Florida, she joined the Gulf Blockading Squadron off Pensacola, Florida, on 2 May. There, her initial duty consisted of dispatch service and shuttling mail between the blockaders and their base at Key West. She also carried mail to Havana, Cuba. However, later that summer, her duty station was changed to the area around the mouth of the Mississippi River. That duty lasted until the beginning of 1862. During the intervening months, she made several reconnaissance runs into the mouth of the Mississippi, missions made possible by her shallow draft. During one such incursion, ships of the Federal Fleet were attacked by the Confederate ram Manassas and the converted gunboat Ivy. Water Witch engaged Ivy briefly but never encountered the ram which zeroed in on and damaged Richmond. The Union ships re-crossed the bar; and the Confederates retired upriver, Manassas having suffered damage to her ram. On 20 January 1862, the Gulf Blockading Squadron was divided in two to create the West Gulf Blockading Squadron and the East Gulf Blockading Squadron. Water Witch was assigned to the latter organization, and her area of operations became the gulf coasts of Alabama and Florida. She served most frequently off Mobile, Alabama and Pensacola, but also performed the familiar duty of dispatch vessel and mail packet. On 5 March 1862, the gunboat pursued the Confederate schooner, William Mallory, for five hours before finally capturing the blockade runner late in the day. In April, she began another period of repairs that lasted until September. On 6 September, she was recommissioned and ordered to join Rear Admiral Samuel F. du Pont's South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. She arrived at Port Royal, South Carolina, on 18 September and, by the end of the month, was on blockade station in the St. Johns River in northeastern Florida. On 1 October, Water Witch, , and moved up the river as far as St. John's Bluff to reconnoiter Confederate batteries situated on the heights. They traded some shots with the heavy caliber battery but soon retired because of well-directed fire from the Southerners. The following day, Federal troops landed and moved inland to isolate the Confederates manning