By the 24th, General Gillmore was able to report the “practical demolition” of the fort. On that date, only one gun remained “serviceable in action.” On the morning of the 23d, against Dahlgren’s ironclads, Fort Sumter had fired what were to be its last shots in action. Its brick masonry walls were shattered and undermined; a breach 8 by 10 feet yawned in the upper casemates of the left face; at points, the sloped debris of the walls already provided a practicable route for assault. Still, the Confederate garrison, supplemented by a force of 200 to 400 Negroes, labored night and day, strengthening and repairing. The debris, accumulating above the sand- and cotton-filled rooms, itself bolstered the crumbling walls. On August 26, General Beauregard ordered Fort Sumter held “to the last extremity.” The bombardment continued sporadically during the week following. On the night of September 1-2, the ironclads moved against the fort—the first major naval operation against Fort Sumter since the preceding April. Attempts earlier in the week had been thwarted by circumstance; now, conditions were right. For 5 hours, the frigate _New Ironsides_ and five monitors bombarded the fort, now without a gun with which to reply to the “sneaking sea-devils.” Two hundred and forty-five shot and shell were hurled against the ruin—twice as many as were thrown in the April attack. Then, tidal conditions, as much as a “rapid and sustained” fire from Fort Moultrie, forced the monitors’ withdrawal. [Illustration: Maj. Stephen Elliott. From Johnson, The Defense of Charleston Harbor.] [Illustration: Shell from the monitor Weehawken exploding on the interior of Fort Sumter, September 8, 1863. From an original photograph by G. S. Cook, Courtesy Charleston Chapter No. 4, United Daughters of the Confederacy.] Some desultory firing on the 2d brought to a close the first sustained bombardment of Fort Sumter. Over 7,300 rounds had been hurled against the fort since the opening of fire on August 17. With the fort, to all intents, reduced to a “shapeless and harmless mass of ruins,” the Federal commanders now concentrated on Battery Wagner, to which General Gillmore’s sappers had come within 100 yards. On the morning of September 5, Federal cannoneers commenced a devastating barrage against that work. For 42 hours, night and day, in a spectacle “of surpassing sublimity and grandeur,” 17 mortars and 9 rifled cannon, as well as the powerful guns of the ironclads, pounded the earthwork. Calcium lights “turned night into day.” On the night of September 6-7, the Confederate garrisons at Wagner and Gregg evacuated; Morris Island, after 58 days, was at last in the hands of Union troops. Just three-quarters of a mile away stood Fort Sumter.