It might have been Vic Hurley - in his ARROWS AGAINST STEEL - who mentioned that Benjamin Franklin once proposed that we recruit men to be trained as military ARCHERS for the Revolution, to function as hobeiars. Considering the inaccuracy and rate-of-fire of the Brown Bess, a trained archer could launch 12 aimed arrows in a minute. You have to imagine the effects of direct- and plunging-fire against an exposed British column as they marched along. On top of the obvious logistics, it took two years to produce a competent archer - it was a too-little-too-late situation that would have SAVED many of our lives. The majority of casualties at Little Big Horn were from plunging arrow-fire.
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Native American warriors at the Battle of Little Bighorn acquired firearms through trade, capture, and possibly informal channels, using a mix of repeating rifles, single-shot carbines, and revolvers.