During the course of the late spring and summer, the monitor, assigned to the North Atlantic Squadron, visited eastern seaboard ports: Savannah, Georgia (17–23 May), Port Royal, South Carolina (23 May-8 June), Brunswick, Georgia (23–28 July), Southport, North Carolina, (2–10 August) and a return visit to Port Royal (12–20 August), interspersing these port visits with operations out of Hampton Roads and Chesapeake Bay. Early in the course of this period of operations, the combination of defects in the design of monitors in general (inadequate ventilation for engine room forces, particularly) and the summer heat produced hellish conditions aboard "Amphitrite", in some cases actually felling members of the "black gang" who had to carry out their tasks in the ship's engine and fire rooms.