On June 27, 1864, the Burnside Rifle Co. entered into a contract with the Ordnance Dept. to manufacture 30,500 .52-cal. M1860 Spencer carbines with deliveries completed by Aug. 31, 1865. With the changes directed to be made to the carbines, deliveries did not start until April 15, 1865, and they continued until the end of October, with a 30,496 M1865 Spencer carbines being delivered. Six additional carbines were delivered as samples, prototypes and models. Of this number, 14,494 were equipped with the Stabler cut-off and 16,008 without.

The company paid Spencer Repeating Rifle Co. a royalty of 50 cents for each carbine delivered to the Ordnance Dept., and $1 was paid for the 4,000 Spencer carbines sold to military individuals and civilians.

The Spencer factory manufactured nearly 23,000 M1865 Spencer carbines, of which 12,502 were equipped with the Stabler cut-off. In the post-war period, Springfield Armory retrofitted about 12,000 M1860s to incorporate M1865 features.

The .56-50-cal. M1865 Spencer carbines manufactured by the Burnside Rifle Co. and the Spencer Repeating Rifle Co. weighed 8 pounds, 5 ounces with 20-inch barrels, and they had an overall length of 37 inches. The Burnside receivers were stamped:

MODEL 1865
SPENCER REPEATING RIFLE
PAT’D MARCH 6, 1860
MANUFACTURED AT PROV.R.I.
BY BURNSIDE RIFLE CO.

The Spencer factory carbines had the both the M1860 stamping and the M1865. A saddle bar and ring was located on the buttstock’s left, and sling swivels were located on the barrel band and underside of the buttstock.

In 1871, Springfield Armory converted 1,109 M1865 Spencer carbines manufactured by Burnside into rifles, replacing the carbine barrels with 32-inch-long standard M1868 Springfield rifle barrels and fore-ends secured by two barrel bands. The converted rifles retained the carbine’s saddle bars and rings on the left side of their buttstocks. It does not appear that those converted rifles were ever issued.

Post-War Field Service
The years after the Civil War saw the U.S. Cavalry assigned to various outposts on the frontier, and in 1866, four additional cavalry regiments were organized for frontier duty, with the last two being the U.S. Ninth and 10th Cavalries, better known as “Buffalo Soldiers.” They, along with the rest of the Army, tried to maintain order and protect against hostile Indian attacks. The M1865 Spencer carbine was the standard in post-war service and remained in service into the middle 1870s.

One of the largest Indian raids into Texas occurred in July 1870. Chief Kicking Bird led 100 Kiowa warriors from Fort Sill Reservation on a raid into Texas. On the Wichita River, the raiders came in contact with a detachment of 55 Sixth U.S. Cavalry troopers from Fort Richardson. Totally surrounded, the cavalrymen—armed with Spencer carbines—fought a delaying retreat. The men dismounted and led their horses, and in the four-hour engagement before the Indians called off the attack, the cavalrymen suffered two dead and 11 wounded. The Kiowa losses were 15 killed and several wounded. For their conspicuous acts of bravery, nine cavalrymen were awarded the Medal of Honor.

Two years later, Captain Jack and his Modocs moved into the lava beds of Northern California in late 1872 after a clash with the cavalry, and a portion of the Spencer carbine-armed First U.S. Cavalry and the Warm Springs Indian scouts were sent to force them out of the lava beds. The siege of Captain Jack’s position lasted several months and finally ended in the summer of 1873, at which time Captain Jack abandoned the stronghold. Then the troopers—with the assistance of the Warm Springs scouts—tracked the Modocs down and Captain Jack was captured and later hanged.

Spencers were replaced by the .45-70 Gov’t Model 1873 Springfield carbines, and it was with the newly issued single-shot Model 1873 “Trapdoor” that troopers of Lt. Col. George Custer’s U.S. Seventh Cavalry entered the Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876. What influence—if any—the seven-shot, repeating Spencers may have had on “Custer’s Last Stand” would be pure conjecture, but the Spencer’s firepower relied on by the U.S. Cavalry since 1863 was assuredly missed.