Q: If repeating rifles were available at the start of the Civil War, why did the Union Army continue to use muzzleloaders for the first three years of the war?
The issue had little to do with doctrine. The real sticking points were logistics, money, and the ugly realities of trying to expand an army from 16,000 to over a million men. The supposed “villain” in this tale is the Union Army’s Chief of Ordinance, Brigadier General James Ripley. In response to a query from the Secretary of War about buying Henry and Spencer rifles in late 1861, Ripley pointed out logical and practical reasons for not buying the weapons. He worried about the reliability of both weapon’s magazine systems, the cost of the rifles and ammunition, and inreasing the already troublesome number of different types and calibers of ammunition in the army. While he was conservative in his bent, he had good reasons for being cautious.
Neither the Henry nor the Spencer [repeating rifles] had undergone much testing in the field, and neither company was ready for anything approaching the mass production required to arm a rapidly expanding army. In 1861 and 1862, the Union needed weapons immediately —not sometime in 1863 or 1864.
Both the Henry and the Spencer were more than three times the cost of a traditional rifled musket. Marcus Tullius Cicero had it right when he noted that, “The sinews of war is infinite money.”
The adoption of repeating rifles would also have saddled the Union Army with deep logistical burdens. Repeating rifles supply lead to more ammunition consumption. The combat load for a muzzle-loading rifle equipped infantryman was 40 rounds. Both armies during the war expected that this basic load would be sufficient for a day of fighting. The 16- shot Henry could easily that supply in less than four minutes of firing.
Although the repeaters offered a firepower overmatch against the Confederates and the possibility of revolutionizing tactics by allowing soldiers to lay down while firing and spreading out formations for safety without sacrificing volume of fire,these changes required a large degree of additional training and discipline in the individual soldier. Also, a soldier with the issued musket tool could perform most of the repair on a rifle musket in the field using the simple musket tool issued with their weapons. Any damage to a repeating rifle required access to a much wider array of parts and the service of a trained armorer.