After towing service in New York Harbor where the Navy was buying vessels to blockade the Confederate coast, , commanded by "Acting Master" Lemuel G. Crane, got underway on March 6, 1862, and with escorted the just built ironclad to Hampton Roads. The three ships reached nearby Fort Monroe on the night of March 8, the first day of the Battle of Hampton Roads. "Sachem" was present the next day during "Monitor"s historic engagement with Confederate ironclad ram, CSS "Virginia". The Confederates built the "Virginia" by using the raised hull and engines of the former —which had been burned and scuttled by U.S. Navy forces as they retreated from nearby Norfolk Navy Yard when that facility was seized by the Confederacy early in the Civil War.