Don't forget about the training of new Conscripts. Young troops who had just become of age for military service who probably had not had much firearms practise to that point.

We think that all southern boys had grown up with a gun in their hand. But by 1864 and 3 years of War there probably was not much oppurtunity for a young boy to "prak-tize" at home with most of the public firearms having been taken to rearm the Confederate Army in Arkansas in 1862.

This is a point that is usually lost on most of us today is that only certain persons, who were in authority, had been allowed to keep "military grade" weapons, including shotguns, in most of the south. And If your area was under Union Occupation, everone with a gun of any kind, was considered a Bushwacker or a Partisan Ranger or worst and subject to arrest or being shot.

The best way to control a populas is to first to disarm them.