vessels are unsurpassed. Service history Civil War, 1864–1865 Nyack was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. She was active in enforcing the Union blockade of the Confederacy as early as November 1864. On 23 December 1864 she took on coal at Beaufort, South Carolina and then joined Admiral Porter's fleet in the Cape Fear River for the first assault on Fort Fisher. At 11:20 am on 25 December 1864 Nyack joined in the bombardment of the fort. At 5:30 pm, on Porter's orders, Nyack sailed closer in to the beach and anchored in only in order to support the landing troops more closely. Her guns fired continuously during this phase of the battle. While the guns of the fort were silenced, the landing force was unable to take the bastion and was withdrawn. Porter immediately began work on a new invasion plan, this time with a different army general. His fleet got underway from Fortress Monroe on January 12, 1865. By 11 pm on 13 January 1865, it had once again anchored off of Fort Fisher. Some histories of this battle place Nyack with the other gunboats of Porter's fleet in roughly the same position as she had in the first assault. It seems likely that this is in error as an abstract of Nyack's log for the period survives in Congressional reports. From 13 January to 17 January 1865, when the second assault on Fort Fisher took place, Nyack's log places her at the "Old Inlet" entrance to the Cape Fear River. At this location she could hear Porter's bombardment of Fort Fisher in the distance. Her crew witnessed the destruction of Fort Caswell by Confederate troops in the wake of the Union victory at Fort Fisher, but according to her log she did not take part in the battle. Porter pushed up the Cape Fear River and began bombarding Fort Anderson on 17 February 1865. At 8 am on 18 February 1865 Nyack joined in the bombardment of the fort which continued into the evening. The Confederate guns were silenced by 3 pm. Faced with the approach of 8,000 Union troops under the command of General John Schofield, the fort was evacuated that night. Nyack arrived back at the New York Navy Yard, via Beaufort, from Wilmington on 3 April 1865. She went into drydock there to be fitted for operation overseas. Pacific,