As the political crisis of 1860-1861 developed into Civil War, Lieutenant Balch was ashore, at the Naval Academy and the Naval Observatory. From mid-1861 to mid-1862 he was commanding officer of the steam sloop Pocahontas, an active blockader along the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia, and received promotion to the rank of Commander during this time. He spent most of the rest of the Civil War in command of USS Pawnee, which was also employed along the Confederacy's south Atlantic coast.
