be classed as a gunboat. On 28 October, Rear Admiral David D. Porter, the new commanding officer of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, issued orders to Acting Master Henry Arey, commanding the newly converted sidewheeler, to "proceed and report to the senior officer off Eastern Bar (Cape Fear River) for duty on the blockade as a chaser." Wilderness went into action almost immediately. At 19:05 on the evening of 31 October, while patrolling off New Inlet, North Carolina, she spotted a strange vessel bearing south by west, heading over the bar. , on station nearby, also saw the ship and came about. Wilderness, steaming at top speed and firing as she came, ultimately overhauled the strange vessel and captured her at 19:45. The prize turned out to be the British blockade-runner Annie and was described by Arey as "... a fine steamer, with two propellers, one smokestack and ... schooner-rigged." Sailors from Wilderness boarded the ship, finding her cargo to consist of 540 bales of cotton, 30 tons of pressed tobacco, and 14 casks of "spirits of turpentine." Niphon took on board the passengers and crew of the runner while Wilderness took charge of the prize. During the transfer of prisoners, Confederate guns at nearby Fort Fisher opened fire on the Union vessels. One shell struck Wilderness, passing through her hurricane deck on the starboard side and going through a water tank at the port gangway, where it exploded, damaging the rim of the gunboat's port wheel. Repaired at Beaufort, North Carolina, when the ship put into that port for coal, Wilderness resumed blockade duties off Wilmington, North Carolina soon thereafter. Shortly before the Union assault on Fort Fisher, the key Confederate stronghold guarding the approaches to the seaport of Wilmington, a daring plan to reduce some of the defenses by using an explosive-laden ship was put into motion. The sidewheel steamer was stripped and filled with explosives; manned by a volunteer crew commanded by Commander Alexander C. Rhind; and towed into position, first by and later by Wilderness, off the fort. The latter took up the tow on 18 December, but heavy weather delayed the start of the entire operation. In the final attempt, made on 23 December, Wilderness—manned by Acting Master Arey, four officers and "enough men to handle the vessel"—took Louisiana in close to the walls of Fort Fisher. Rhind and his men lit the fuses, kindled