"Ticonderoga" left Philadelphia bound for Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 31 October. She was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron on 4 November and deployed off Wilmington, North Carolina. "Ticonderoga" participated in the first, unsuccessful attempt to take Fort Fisher, North Carolina, on 24 and 25 December, losing eight men killed and 20 wounded on the first day of the assault when a 100-pounder Parrott rifle exploded. A landing party from "Ticonderoga" assisted in the capture of the fort on 15 January 1865, during the Second Battle of Fort Fisher.