1776 - Does the game feel right to you?

[Gary McClellan]

A few things here.  This has long been a complaint in all the blackpowder games, but part of it is that "losses" represents a bit of everything.  Not only KIA and WIA, but even those who just become combat ineffective and become a straggler or the like.  That can tend to exaggerate the numbers.

Also, in regards to

All that shooting was really about closing and attacking with the bayonet back then.

That's not exactly correct.  Infantry almost never got to bayonet point in that era, at least not in open terrain. (In woods or towns, it's a whole different process, and bayonets and clubbed muskets were very much in play.)

Certainly, the doctrine of some nations (for instance, the British) called for prepatory musket fire to disorder their enemy (others like the French would more often just go to close).  However, the different sides almost never actually made it to contact.  The attackers would advance, the defenders would try to shoot them up, and then one side or the other would have their morale slip, and either the defenders would start falling back, or the attackers would lose momentum and halt (and then fall back.)  It was all an enormous game of applied psychology. Whose nerve broke first?

So, even in what we think of as the "melee phase", in open terrain, the losses are really just more musket fire the vast majority of time.

Note: all of the above applies to infantry melee.  Cavalry of course is looking to use their sabers in melee.