Regiments in question are the 60th, 61st and 62nd Tennessee. Knoxville newspapers from the fall of 1862 (when these units were recruited) might be helpful as to prevailing conditions in east Tennessee. Somewhat like the Emancipation Proclamation, the Conscript Act was limited to certain parts of the Confederacy. Notices concerning official enlstment policies being enforced will be found in columns of any period newspaper.

Confederate defeats at Chickasaw Bayou (May 17, 1863) and Rappahannock Bridge (Nov. 7, 1863) are similar in most respects. In both cases Confederate defenders faced an overwhelming assault with a river behind them. Confederate troops defending the Rappahannock Bridge (Godwin's NC and Hays' LA brigades of Early's Division) had much more experience and a better position than Vaughn's Tennesseeans and the other two brigades at Big Black, yet results were nearly identical.

http://www.nps.gov/archive/frsp/rapp.htm

Aside from the morale factor, we might also note the poorly-situated and inadequate Confederate defensive works at Big Black.

A better allusion to WWII defensive failures would be the resistance offered by the eight ex-Soviet battalions during the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944. In comparison the French fought remarkably well in 1940.