"Canonicus" was transferred to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron at Charleston, South Carolina, after the capture of Fort Fisher in January and helped to capture one blockade runner. She was sent to Havana, Cuba, to search for the Confederate ironclad and became one of the first ironclads to visit a foreign port. The ship was intermittently in commission from 1872 until she was permanently decommissioned in 1877. "Canonicus" was exhibited at the Jamestown Exposition of 1907 before she was sold for scrap the following year.