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Well, since we had a thread on firepower, I think it's only fair to start one up on questions surrounding the mechanics of cold steel, and the bayonet charge.

The rules seem to imply Line formation is best for this sort of thing, but my battle experience seems to say otherwise; I've found that Line tends not to give a unit enough movement points to assault the enemy hex...especially after their Readiness drops after a few rounds of exchanging volleys.

Column actually seems to be the best for pure assaulting for this reason. Alternatively, SKirmish is pretty good too; with Skirmish you can even spend 15mp to fire if you are a bit short of the mps needed for a charge. Plus Skirmish is a lot better defensively than Column.

So, how exactly is melee damage calculated, I wonder?

I would guess that a column charge against a line would expose you to the same kind of fire as naval vessels whose T had been crossed. Especially against good troops. Can't see American Militia doing it against good infantry... But must experiment. Thanks for the question. Oh, and in your tests of this, who charged whom?

I've been Brits my first game...since intuitively I know I'm supposed to be better with the bayonet, I did alot of charging (esp. vs militia).  Like I said, Column or Skirmish seemed to be the best way to go about this sort of combat.  With a slight preference towards Skirmish.

Historically, about 15 to 20 years after this war, Napoleon and the French were to learn that columns were a very effective way to charge into melee.  Especially when your troops aren't very well trained or of high quality.  Bunching them up in a column helped to keep poor morale or poorly trained troops together and into the melee, and the mass of that column makes a nice impact on a line when they hit.
 
I'm just playing the demo, so I have no idea if that's anything that works in this game.

It says in the rules that a column charge is not allowed with advanced settings...