"Southerner" – a Chesapeake Bay schooner – was purchased by the Union Navy at Baltimore, Maryland, on 13 August 1861. The vessel was laden with stone and towed to Hampton Roads. On 26 August, she and sister stone schooner "Mary and Hetty" got underway with Flag Officer Silas Stringham's task force for the assault on Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina. There, she was used as a transport during the reduction of Fort Hatteras and Fort Clark on the 28th and 29th.