While I have posted this before many times the issue of ammunition for repeating rifles comes up. Too many feel that a man armed with a repeated just blasted away. Many picked their targets of opportunity using deliberate fire but at times where the range was close rapid fire was used but that does not mean that they just blasted away. There are always exceptions where a unit did blast away all of their ammunition but that was not the norm.
Special Field Order No. 26 for the Fourth Division, Fifteenth Corps gives an idea of how much ammunition was necessary for troops armed with the Henry Repeating rifle. Dated December 7, 1864 near the Ogeechee River, Ga., the special field order list the order of march. “The Third Brigade will have the advance, followed by the pioneer corps, and then the battery; the Second Brigade will move in the center, followed by the trains hereafter designated; the First Brigade will bring up the rear. The battery will take three wagons loaded with canister, two wagons loaded with shell, and one wagon with shot. Each brigade will take five ordnance wagons loaded with caliber .58, and for each regiment armed with Henry rifles one wagon load of that kind of ammunition will be taken. By order of Brig. General John M. Crose” (69) It would be interesting to know how many cases of .44 caliber Henry ammunition a wagon load consisted of, at any rate, it had to be thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Many that knew the value of having repeating rifles knew that they were worthless unless you had the ammunition to shoot in them.