Thanks Birdie!
Appreciate the response and first hand accounts.
In asking my question, I was also thinking about the Cherokee during the Rutherford Expedition in 1776. The Cherokee would likely have destroyed the Expedition in a well thought out ambush. But they ran out ammunition about 2 hours into the battle and had to withdraw. The result was the Expedition burned most of the Cherokee Middle Towns to the ground and forced the Cherokee to sue for peace.
With regards to musketry effectiveness (in massed battles), Brent Nosworthy in "Bloody Crucible of Courage" gives some statistics. I found the book a bit painful to read, though.
For trained Europeans using the smoothbore in the 1700s and 1800s somewhere between 1 in 200 shots and 1 in 500 shots seems to be consensus. For the period 1861-5 one in 100 shots to one in 200 shots. (One casualty per so many shots)
At the Battle of Churubusco (Mexican War August 1847), a British observer calculated that American Infantry inflicted 1 Mexican casualty for every 125 shots while the Mexican Infantry inflicted one American casualty for every 800 shots. The Americans were supposedly using the Model 1840 Musket (smoothbore flintlock). (Also, assume 3 or so wounded for every killed.)
Knowing that an Infantryman's basic load was usually 40-60 rounds, one can get an idea about the effectiveness of one guy. (Iirc 25 rds for the militia at Minisink.)
Of course, these numbers were for infantry facing infantry in fairly static and dense formations. A guy wildly riding a horseback shooting at another guy wildly riding a horse across broken terrain probably changes the odds.
Add to that if a guy had to buy his own ammunition, and choose between expending it feeding his family (or defending them) versus shooting it in a battle, that also might affect the ammunition expenditure.
Some of the stats in Nosworthy are kind of funny in a sad way. Union General Rosecrans estimated that the 20,000 artillery shells fired by the Union at Murfreesboro/Stones River (Dec 1862) caused 768 Confederate casualties.
