After entering service, the ship was sent to the Italian Peninsula in 1861 to protect Prussians and other German nationals during the Second Italian War of Independence, part of the unification of Italy. She thereafter went to Greece, the Ottoman Empire, and then to Romania before being recalled to Prussia in 1862. She served in her intended role during the Second Schleswig War, serving as the command ship for five flotillas of gunboats based in the Baltic Sea. She saw action against the Danish Navy during the war at the Battle of Jasmund, where she received a single hit that killed one man. After the war, she was decommissioned and saw little activity for the rest of the decade, by which time she was in poor condition.