Henry Rifle Use

coltshooter1

Sergeant
Joined
Feb 20, 2005
Location
Southwest Virginia
Another thread mention the incorrect use of the Henry in reenactments. It made me curious about the correct use and deployment of the weapon. Can anyone give the correct info.
 
1st DC Cav, 12 KY Cav, 1st ME Cav, 7th, 16th, 23rd, 51st, 64th (?), 66th & 80th IL Inf, 58th, 93rd & 97th IN Inf w/ the 7th VA (US) Inf carried the Henry w/ a smattering of private purchases in other regiments. The Cav units mentioned were anything but dismounted and the Infantry were Infantry.
 
And in fact two of them, the 64th and 66th were sharpshooters.. the 64th was Yates' Sharpshooters and the 66th was The Western Sharpshooters, formerly Birge's Western Sharpshooters. The official arms reports show the 64th armed with M1861 USRM from the 1863-1865, but the men purchased Henry's as did the 66th.
 
How were the Henry's used in combat by the units. Were they used in volley fire, holding the reserve rounds for emergency use-i.e. rapid fire at critical times? Or were the units primarily used as skirmishers?
I am wondering about the proper use of the weapon in combat and any accounts of how they were used. I also should include the Spencer in this inquiry as it may have been a better weapon in that era.
 
As far as the 64th and 66th Illinois, the Henry was used in the skirmish line... the 66th used them with great effect to take back the guns of DeGress's Battery at the Troup Hurt house at Atlanta, and used them to force a crossing of the Oostanaula River at Resaca. At Bentonville, it was the 64th Illinois, armed with Henry rifles, that skirmished ahead of Mower and nearly captured Joe Johnston
 
At Allatoona a company of Henry armed men of the 7th IL VI were held as the reserve behind Rowett's Redoubt, they opened at under 40 yards and stalled the CS assault w/ that mass of fire. At close range they would be devestating.
 
Frankly, I liked the 7 shot Spencer because it packed a bit more punch and the cartridges
loaded and fed through a tube in the butt plate of the stock. The Henry had an
exposed magazine tube, which of course got hot and left you no place to put your left
hand (beyond the receiver). In addition the magazine tube was subject to being bent if dropped,
rendering the feeding mechanism useless.

As far as correct usage, I think the reference was to dismounted Union cavalry blazing away
with Henry rifles on foot. I think I said it. There were plenty of documented cases of Union cavalry
that rode horses and used their own privately purchased Henry rifles.

I think the .44 Henry rounds held something tepid like 26-28 gr of BP, to the Spencer 45 gr .56 cal.
The Henry was a very innovative design that Winchester improved upon to create the
rifle that tamed the American West a generation later. But if it was me, I'd take one of the
"Yankey's (sic) Seven Devils" that "loaded on Sunday and shot all week." Again, not for
dismounted cavalry with pretend horses, for the big boys on horseback.
 
Henry was 44-28. Not a powerful round when you consider the Colt Walker used 50 grains and if I am not mistaken the Dragoon used about 40.
So in reality the dismounted troopers should use the "standard" infantry rifle ( a three band Enfield or a Springfield), not the Henry of Spenser? Or at least most Mounted Rifles would use the long infantry weapon?
 
They should be, depending on side, be using the arms common to that arm... Sharps, Spencers, Maynards, Smiths, Burnsides, or if CS any of the many weapons known to be used.. Cook and Bro, JP Murray, Missisippis, Enfield Rifles, Richmond Sharps... the biggest thing.. if you cant afford horses, at least invest in some research and find out HOW Cavalry was armed, not just what strikes your fancy
 
I'm happy to do infantry, as I have not been on a horse in twenty years and have no wish to get on one now.(Although my great-great-great grandfather would probably disown me as he was in the 16th Va Cav.) I also don't want to do dismounted cav or mounted infantry. I am just curious about the weapons and tactics, as this is something I have never located much information about in research on other areas of the war.
 
The Henry Repeating rifle has been a hobby of mine for the past 40 years. To some extent the rifle has been misused in reenacting but more probably has been misunderstood in reenacting. Their is a very good web page at http://44henryrifle.webs.com/index.htm that deals with many aspects of the Henry rifle and its uses. There is also an abundance of information online that can be researched. Over the last 3 years I have written “The Henry Repeating Rifle: The Weapon of Choice! Usage of the Henry Repeating Rifle in the Civil War”. I have written over 40,000 words and have used over 120 primary source materials such as letters, diaries, and books written by the soldiers who used the Henry Repeating rifle, all out of print book and copyright dated pre 1920’s and most in the late 1800s. I have also found an abundance of information in the ORs on the use of the Henry Repeating rifle. What I have found out covers several aspects of Henry Rifle usage.
1. The Henry rifle was used for skirmish duty, many of the units have already been given.
2. It was used for a rapid fire advance on a defended position. Rapid fire means aimed shots, one every two or 3 seconds or so.
3. The Henry rifle was used to defend against overwhelming numbers.
4. The Henry rifle was used as a long range weapon. Long range defined as over 200 yards. Many of the Civil War veterans talk about shots a lot farther that that even out to 500 yards and beyond.
5. I have found no documentation on the use of firing by file or by company. In almost all cases the Henry was used as a rapid fire weapon describe as “sheets of fire”, “the levers were worked as fast as pump handles” or “I fired over 90 rounds and when I spit on the barrel it would sizzle”. I could go on about the description but they all mean the same thing.
6. Units and men armed with the Henry rifle were chosen many times for “Special Duty”. This involved setting ambushes such as the 66th Illinois did around Corinth in late 1863. General Dodge chose members of the 66th that were armed with Henry Rifles for his bodyguards. President Jefferson Davis had body guards armed with Henry rifles. Fourteen Henry armed men were chosen for a night information gather mission in North Carolina.
7. Even Confederates use the Henry rifle. In fact Lorenzo Fisher and his entire company were armed with Henry repeating rifles, company strength means 50 or more, to help in the capture of Clarksville in 1862.
8. Most of the 10,000 Henry rifles used in the war were used by infantry. The government only purchased 1731 Henry rifles of which only about 900 were delivered during the war. These went to the 1st DC Cavalry which ended up losing over 300 of these to the rebs in “The Great Beef Steak Raid”.
List above is just a very small amount of detailed information my research has uncovered over the last 3 years. There will be more Henry rifles in the upcoming 150th events where Henry rifles were used. Bentonville, NC in 2010 had 23 Henry rifles in just our group and probably another 20 were scattered in the other units.
 
Was the Henry ever government issue?
US government purchases amounted to 1731 of these fewer than 900 were issued to the 1st DC Cavalry. Of those over 300 were lost to the Confederates in "The Great Beef Steak Raid". There were also a few state purchase of Henry rifles but most of the 10,000 Henry Rifles that were used in the Civil War were private purchase Henry rifles. Soldiers used their back pay or bonuses to purchase the expensive Henry where prices ran from $35 to $75 depending on where they were purchased. Many times that soldier had to purchase the ammunition for their rifle but the US government did purchase over 4 million rounds of ammunition.
 
Good info. However, having captured a Henry or Spencer, one had to capture the feed for it. Wasn't no Confederate wagon carrying the proper boxes of rounds for any of them. Ain't sayin' there weren't none, just that they were more trouble than they were worth. The main benefit was taking them away from those dang Yankees.
 
Lorenzo Fisher sure thought that they were worth the trouble since his entire company carried them. Of course in 1862 all he would have had to do was to go to Louisville and purchase his feed for the Henry. The great thing about the Yankee supply lines is that they supplied both the Yanks and the Rebs as long as Mosby and the like were around. LOL
 
Mr. Bresnan, I read your article on the Henry in the Civil War, and saw you refer to a specific one that was carried by a relative of mine:

"Serial number 2639 is inscribed Chas Webster Co D WSS Vet. Vol."

Here is a photo of that 66th Illinois soldier (a great-great-etc.-nephew of mine):
webster%20charles%20i.%201844-1864%20sm_zpsb0t9gdt6.jpg


He almost certainly carried that very same Henry when he was killed in action on 7/22/1864 at the Battle of Atlanta.

I'd love to know if there's any way to trace where that Henry is now -- presumably in a private collection -- and to get a picture of it or maybe even see it someday.
 
The Cav units mentioned were anything but dismounted .

Just a footnote on tactics - while firing the revolver from horseback was practiced, I believe the standard tactic for getting the most out of carbine fire was to dismount the Company, with every forth trooper becoming a horse-handler and retiring to a protected position in the rear (think the Company 1st Lieut or 1SG was in charge of this formation).

Skirmish line.
472xKl1.jpg


Horse handlers retiring (Remington painting from the Indian Wars, but same-same tactic). Note troopers firing from the prone to left center of illustration.
O6ivwCO.jpg
 
Just a footnote on tactics - while firing the revolver from horseback was practiced, I believe the standard tactic for getting the most out of carbine fire was to dismount the Company, with every forth trooper becoming a horse-handler and retiring to a protected position in the rear (think the Company 1st Lieut or 1SG was in charge of this formation).

Skirmish line.
View attachment 133971

Horse handlers retiring (Remington painting from the Indian Wars, but same-same tactic). Note troopers firing from the prone to left center of illustration.
View attachment 133972
1 in 4 men iirc was detailed as horse handlers for a cav unit when working as a skirmish line. The men would remount to move any distance.

The term dismounted Cavalry today on the re-enactment world is generally used by those wishing to portray cav but lacking in horses. To be brutally honest about most who do such today probably couldn't saddle a horse let alone tell a horse from a mule.

At the time dismounted cav were units that were sans horses and were utilized as infantry. They would turn in their cav weaponry and draw infantry arms.
 
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