During the night of May 19, 1864, Confederate Navy Capt. John Goldsmith and a dozen men slipped past a nearby Union Potomac Flotilla gunboat and came ashore from the 30-foot sloop Swan intending to destroy Blackistone Lighthouse, whose tower projected through the roof of the lightkeeper's living quarters. Goldsmith, a St. Mary's County resident, former owner of St. Clement's Island, and former neighbor of lighthouse keeper Jerome McWilliams and his pregnant wife, Fanny, was persuaded by McWilliams that burning the house and light would be harmful to his wife and unborn child. Goldsmith and his crew left the building standing, destroying only the lens and lamp and taking 15 gallons of oil. While awaiting replacement equipment, McWilliams used a handheld lamp to light the tower each night. In reporting the incident, Potomac Flotilla Commander Foxhall A. Parker expressed the opinion that as long as so many rebel sympathizers remained in Maryland and on Virginia's eastern shore, the lighthouses there were unsafe without a guard on shore. Federal troops were soon stationed on St. Clement's Island, at Piney Point Lighthouse, and on the lightship off Smith's Point. Years later, Mrs. Josephine McWilliams Freeman, the McWilliamses' granddaughter, often retold the episode to visitors while serving as lightkeeper, illustrating it with pieces of broken lens glass; appointed in 1876, she served for 37 years and was one of only 49 women ever to serve as a lightkeeper in the United States.