It seems I remember from that show that the troopers had Trap Door Springfields, in .45-70 caliber. The cartridge cases were copper, and tended to stick in the chamber when the gun (Oops-"rifle", Marines)began to become fouled from black powder. The case head would separate, and had to be pried out with a knife; not easy to do when people were shooting at you with better weapons than you had. Made 'em shake in their boots.

The forensic anthropologists were able to match certain .45-70 crtridge cases to a particular weapon by the makings left on the case, and thus trace a particular soldier to different parts of the field, until he was finally killed, and stripped of his boots, and maybe his feet, to cripple him in the afterlife. That is why Indians mutilated their enemies. There is one famous picture of a dead cavalryman, stripped, full of arrows, his legs split open, his penis cut off, hiss eyes poked out, etc. He would not function too well in the afterlife; he could not walk, see, or reproduce. No happy hunting ground for him. It was a rough war. Stan