ten o'clock
But with the small stock of ammunition doled out to the coast defenses in times of peace -- there were plenty of blank cartridges for salutes -- it was impossible to hold Winfield Scott . The fort sent out a few dozen shells into the fog pretty blindly , and , as a matter of fact , they hit nothing . Then began the hopeless battle between the garrison and the Japanese machine-guns , and although the shots from the latter were powerless to affect the walls and the armor-plating , still they worked havoc among the men . And the ammunition of the Americans disappeared even more quickly than their men , so that when at ten o'clock two Japanese regiments undertook to capture the fort by storm , the last defender fell with practically the last cartridge . Then the Rising Sun of Dai Nippon was substituted on the flagstaff of Winfield Scott for the Stars and Stripes . In the city itself small Japanese guards were posted at the railway station , the Post Office and the telegraph offices , at the City Hall and at most of the public buildings , and as early as this , on the morning of May seventh , troops for the march eastward were being landed at the pier at Oakland . A standing garrison of only five thousand men was left in San Francisco , and these at once occupied the coast-batteries and prepared them for defense .