His services in the Mexican War were unimportant and he was a first lieutenant of the Brooklyn Navy Yard when the Civil War broke out.
In the month of April, 1861, when a conflict was inevitable, the Government was anxious to send dispatches to Captain Adams commanding the fleet at Pensacola, who was waiting for orders to reinforce with two companies of artillery, that post being in danger of capture by the Confederates.

The dispatches intrusted to Lieutenant Worden were orders for such reinforcements to be made.
It was so delicate and dangerous a duty, since Worden was compelled to make his way through the South which was aflame with secession excitement, that he committed the dispatches to memory and then destroyed them.

He applied to General Bragg in command of the Confederate forces in that neighborhood for permission to make a verbal communication from the Secretary of War to Captain Adams.

Permission was given, and, going on board, Worden delivered his message like a boy reciting his piece at school.

Captain Adams gave him a written acknowledgment of the receipt of the dispatches, adding that the orders of the Government would be carried out.
Having thus cleverly eluded the suspicious watchfulness of the authorities, Lieutenant Worden started for home, but when near Montgomery, Ala., then the capital of the Confederacy, he was arrested, taken from the train and thrown into prison.