commissioned Gettysburg at New York Navy Yard on 2 May 1864, Lieutenant Roswell Lamson commanding. Refitting She had been armed with a 30-pounder Parrot gun, two 12-pounders, and four 24-pounder howitzers. Her tonnage was now given as 950 and she was apparently lengthened by 16 feet to 221 feet. When commissioned, she had a ship's company of 96. She joined the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and captured several ships which were running supplies to the South. Civil War North Atlantic Blockading Squadron A fast, strong steamer, Gettysburg was assigned blockading duty with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and departed New York on 7 May. She arrived at Beaufort, North Carolina on 14 May and from there took station at the entrance to the Cape Fear River. For the next seven months, Gettysburg was engaged in the vital business of capturing blockade runners carrying supplies to the strangling South. She captured several ships, and occasionally performed other duties. On 8 October, for instance, she rescued six survivors from schooner Home, which had capsized in a squall. Battle of Fort Fisher Gettysburg took part in the attack on Fort Fisher on 24–25 December 1864. Gettysburg assisted with the devastating bombardment prior to the landings by Army troops, and during the actual landings stood in close to shore to furnish cover for the assault. Gettysburgs boats were used to help transport troops to the beaches. With the failure of the first attack on the Confederate works, plans were laid for another assault, this time including a landing force of sailors and marines to assault the sea face of the fort. In this second attack on 15 January 1865, Gettysburg again engaged the fort in the preliminary bombardment, and furnished a detachment of sailors under Lt. Roswell Lamson and other officers in an assault, which was stopped under the ramparts of Fort Fisher. Lamson and a group of officers and men were forced to spend the night in a ditch under Confederate guns before they could escape. Though failing to take the sea face of Fort Fisher, the attack by the Navy diverted enough of the defenders to make the Army assault successful. Gettysburg suffered two men killed and six wounded in the assault. Gettysburg spent the remaining months of the war on blockade duty off Wilmington, North Carolina, and operated from April–June between Boston, Massachusetts and Norfolk, Virginia carrying freight and passengers. She