Indeed. Dan believes, wrongly, he has refuted the counterarguments to his case. He came out with the notion that either McClellan or Fox and Goldsborough was lying. Okay, we can test for that. Is there a single surviving communication mentioning that the Army had asked for the Navy to shell Yorktown? Yes there is. Fox's 24th March to Goldsborough explicitly states they were asked to do it. Hence we can conclude that if anyone was lying then it was Fox and Goldsborough. Dan of course can't accept this, but has been able to provide no cogent counterargument.
Indeed. Goldsborough was doing the same in the James. Fox kept trying to get Goldsborough to bombard the rebel battery at Sewell's Point. Goldsborough kept refusing for the same reasons. Eventually when Lincoln came down to Fort Monroe after McClellan had taken Yorktown he patiently listened to Goldsborough's objections and ordered him to attack. The rebels abandoned the Sewell's Point battery that very day, as McClellan's movements had made Norfolk untenable.
The rule that had developed was that with steam ships, one gun in a shore battery equaled one gun afloat.
The Yorktown water battery had 4 guns on the beach (plus an anti-infantry carronade) and 4 guns that could bear on the channel from the main works, thus:
Gloucester Point consisted of two works, and the star fort and the water battery. The water battery
was abandoned in late March and the nine 32 pounders hauled upto the star fort and mounted 8 facing the river and one to the rear. There were also around six 6 and 12 pounders in the landward defence.
So, taking position in the river below Yorktown you'd have 16 heavy guns firing on you - 8 from each shore. The Gloucester Point battery is far less threatening.
Once past the crossfiring batteries there's the Yorktown batteries with 18 guns:
Any strong attack with sloops and frigates would have rapidly overwhelmed the defences. Gloucester fort is 30 feet above the waterline, whilst Yorktown is similar.
With 32 guns, which can be taken in two or three details, the rule of thumb is that
Minnesota alone could have overwhelmed the defenders