At daylight, April 13th, all the batteries again opened, and the new twelve-pounder Blakely rifle, which had arrived but four days before from abroad,[204] caused the wounding of a sergeant and three men by the fragments thrown off from the interior of the wall by its deep penetration. An engineer employed was severely wounded by a fragment of shell. Hot shot now became frequent, and at nine o’clock the officers’ quarters were set afire. As it was evident the fire would soon surround the magazine, every one not at the guns was employed to get out powder; but only fifty barrels could be removed to the casements, when it became necessary from the spread of the flames to close the magazine. The whole range of the officers’ quarters was soon in flames, and the clouds of smoke and cinders sent into the casements set on fire many of the men’s beds and boxes, making the retention of the powder so dangerous that all but five barrels were thrown into the sea.[205] By eleven o’clock the fire and smoke were driven by the wind in such masses into the point where the men had taken refuge that suffocation appeared imminent. “The roaring and crackling of the flames, the dense masses of whirling smoke, the bursting of the enemy’s shells, and our own, which were exploding in the burning rooms, the crashing of the shot and the sound of masonry falling in every direction made the fort a pandemonium.... There was a tower at each angle of the fort. One of these, containing great quantities of shells, ... was almost completely shattered by successive explosions. The massive wooden gates, studded with iron nails, were burned, and the wall built behind them was now a heap of débris, so that the main entrance was wide open for an assaulting party.”[206] But however great the apparent damage and the discomfort and danger while the fire lasted, the firing could have been resumed “as soon as the walls cooled sufficiently to open the magazines, and then, having blown down the wall projecting above the parapet, so as to get rid of the flying bricks, and built up the main gates with stones and rubbish, the fort would actually have been in a more defensible condition than when the action commenced.”[207] But want of men, want of food, and want of powder together made a _force majeure_ against which further strife was useless; and when, about 1 P.M., the flag-staff was shot away, though the flag was at once flown from an improvised staff, a boat was sent from the commanding officer at Morris Island, bringing Colonel (Ex-Senator) Wigfall and a companion bearing a white flag, to inquire if the fort had surrendered.