Ironically, her greatest success came on the morning of 23 December, not when she was on her blockade station, but while she was steaming from Charleston bar to Georgetown, South Carolina, with provisions for screw sloop . As she was passing Cape Romain Shoal, a lookout in the masthead reported two white smokestacks close inshore. "Acacia" altered course and, "on closing in toward the bar, discovered ... a sidewheel steamer of perhaps . No colors could be seen." The stranger's decks were crowded with men preparing to abandon her.