 In 1869, Woodward served on board the newly built gunboat and the Civil War-era gunboat , along the Atlantic coast of South America and the western coast of Africa, probably returning to Washington on September 15, 1869, when the "Kansas" was decommissioned.He was assigned to the Brooklyn Navy Yard from 1869 to 1871, reassigned to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, and probably commanded pre-commissioning crews for the Civil War-era single-turreted monitors and .