Although the musket had a higher rate of fire, how many accurate shots could a rifle shoot before the other side got within effective musket range? And how many musket shots would actually get fired before the other side either charged to bayonet range, or ran out of musket range?
Both smooth bore and rifled muskets had their place. Despite popular beliefs, most battles were fought in the line up in rows and shoot at each other, European method of warfare. 4 shots a minute at a lined up block of soldiers was superior to 2 shots. If you needed to off an officer, 1 or two good men with rifles were superior.
A smooth bore 69. cal. weapon had an effective range of about 50-75 yards. The .58 rifle musket had and effective range over 300 yards. Casy’s and Hardees manuals for infantry called for a soldier to be able to load and fire the weapon at 3 rounds a minute. The soldier didn’t actually aim, in the term we understand, they brought the rifle to aim about shoulder height and fired when ordered to do so. After the first company or regimental volley, the powder smoke pretty much clouded up any vision down range.
Well, until the Minie bullet was developed from its first French form by the US Harpers Ferry Armory team before the Civil War, you comment WAS exactly right: The rifled muskets and pure Kentucky-Pennsylvanian rifles were much, much too slow to make a difference in massed fire by lines of standing troops. The strategy and tactics used in the Revolutionary War-Napoleon Wars-French-and-Indian War .. (and all other conflicts going back to the Germanic wars of the early 1600’s ) were true. (Minie invented the concept, but his didn’t work very well. Were very slow to manufactor, hard to use, wore out the rifling in the barrel.
Rifled weapons were too slow, go ahead and march forward and then rush and charge.
But, when the rifled Minie ball was perfected by Harpers Ferry, THEN it became possible to shoot 3-4 times a minutes accurate to 600 yards. And that lesson was not realized until half-way through the US Civil War. Then promptly forgot again until WWI.