Manned by a Danish crew, the ship left Bordeaux for its shakedown cruise on 21 June 1864. The crew tested the vessel while final negotiations were being conducted between the Danish Naval Ministry and Arman. Intense haggling over the final price and a disagreement over compensation from the company for cited problems and late delivery led to negotiations breaking down on 30 October, although the ship had set sail for Copenhagen, Denmark, on 25 October. The Danish government refused to relinquish the vessel, claiming confusion in regards to the negotiations. She arrived in Copenhagen on 10 November and was in the dockyard at the beginning of 1865. American career At the beginning of 1865 the Danes sold the ship to the Confederacy. On 6 January the vessel took aboard a Confederate States Navy crew at Copenhagen under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Jefferson Page, although the ship was still commanded by a Danish captain when she put to sea the following day. Heavy weather forced the ship to take refuge at Elsinore, but she set sail shortly afterward for the French coast. She also used the cover name Olinde during this time. There she rendezvoused with the new British blockade runner City of Richmond, taking on supplies and ammunition, as well as more crewmen, from and . During this time she was commissioned CSS Stonewall while still at sea and Page assumed command of the ship. High seas in the Bay of Biscay damaged her rudders while en route for the island of Madeira, Portugal, and forced the ship to seek refuge in Ferrol, Spain. Permanent repairs took several months and provided time for the Union to be notified of the ship's location. In February and March, the Union steam frigate and steam sloop kept watch from a distance as Stonewall lay anchored off A Coruña, waiting for Stonewall to finish her repairs. On 24 March Page put to sea, prepared to engage them, but the unarmored Union ships declined to fight. Stonewall steamed for Lisbon, Portugal, to re-coal, intending to cross the Atlantic Ocean from there. Stonewall reached Nassau, Bahamas, on 6 May and then sailed on to Havana, Cuba, where Page learned of the war's end when he arrived five days later. Union ships first arrived at Havana on 15 May and were reinforced over the course of the month, to include the monitors and . Page decided