The story of how the U.S. Army transport Sumner ended up stranded at Barnegat Light is full of twists and turns and its involvement with the geopolitics of the time. It had been a passenger ship carrying immigrants to America. Later, as part of the Navy in the Spanish-American war, it had supported the invasion of Cuba. As the US began to fight a guerrilla war in the far-off Philippine Islands, the ship was transferred to the Army and renamed the Sumner.