We have been watching that Texas miniseries and last night watched the bit with the battle. In the era of muzzleloaders it would appear that firearms were not all that helpful. It looked more like a giant gang fight than anything else. I guess Fairbairn was right about a tomahawk being the most effective weapon for combat. It doesn’t need to be reloaded and works even better if a bit dull.
By modern standards muzzleloaders weren’t very effective.
Compared to earlier weapons they were. There’s a reason everybody switched to guns as quickly as they got access to them. If your enemies had guns and you didn’t, you were seriously screwed.
The last big guns vs. bows battle was probably Lepanto. The Christians mostly used firearms. The Turks had firearms too, but relied mainly on their highly skilled compound bow archers.
The Turks lost. They replaced their fleet by the next year, but the loss of all those archers was never made up.
Volley firing by disciplined men was where firearms became utterly devastating. See Rorke’s Drift, though they were using early breechloaders.