From what I understand, actual Melee was very rare in the ACW. How do you stop it becoming the mainstream for less skillful teams and thus turning what should be a Musketry game into a hand to hand combat game?
Surely, melee combat will be a large portion of this game, and for many, the reason they will enjoy playing it for a longer time. The developers are not looking to force any specific style of gameplay onto people, and would rather allow the players to choose how they would like to play the game themselves instead.
The 'competitive' side of regiments, similar like in NW, will definitely be most interested in the melee aspect of the game. However, the game should also have another side of both regiments and players, who enjoy roleplaying and playing the game more realistically, who will undoubtedly have a bigger focus on musketry. While I don't speak for the devs, I think I can safely say that the developers aren't going to favour melee over shooting or shooting over melee, but rather develop two well-made mechanics of the game that will provide the players with challenging and interesting gameplay. In the end, both event organizers and server hosts will have the availability to set forth the kind of rules they'd like to on their server/event, letting everyone get the kind of gameplay that they would like to play. Then it will be up to you as a player to decide which regiments you would like to play with, and what servers/events you would like to play in.