I have reviewed a lot of civil war history and have never been able to get a good answer to this question.  Did men who were issued or bought Spencer rifles carry more than one magazine for the rifle?  Also if you had extra Spencer magazines was there a special case that carried Spencer magazines.  

Side questions for those who know how reliable and accurate were Spencer carbines and rifles.

HERE'S YOUR ANSWER!

It's called the Blakeslee cartridge box.

A buddy of mine hunts deer each year with a MODERN REPLICA OF THE SPENCER.

Quoted: A buddy of mine hunts deer each year with a MODERN REPLICA OF THE SPENCER.

Wow how are they reliable?

Quoted: HERE'S YOUR ANSWER! It's called the Blakeslee cartridge box.

I wonder how reliable the extra magazines were given the manufacturing tolerances of the time.

He loves his........STARLINE makes centerfire brass for the 56-50 SPENCER.

He shoots a black powder substitute in it......all the smoke and fire and much less corrosion.

Quoted: HERE'S YOUR ANSWER! It's called the Blakeslee cartridge box.

They weren't general issue to troops armed with Spencers.  The Blakeslee was patented in 1864 and issued in very limited numbers, probably not until 1865.

Quoted: Quoted: HERE'S YOUR ANSWER! It's called the Blakeslee cartridge box. I wonder how reliable the extra magazines were given the manufacturing tolerances of the time.

They were really a kind of speedloader, not a magazine.  The magazine was in the buttstock, the spring and follower were contained in a tube, and that tube was what you removed, filled the magazine and slid the magazine tube back over the column of cartridges in the tube.  Its a lot like the magazine tube in a Marlin Model 60, except in the stock instead of under the barrel.

Amazingly no one ever got a clue that the cartridges could just be loaded into cardboard tubes at the factory and shipped that way.  Just put some wax paper on the open end with some sealing wax and a bit of string, pull the seal off with your teath like a musket cartridge and dump.

The fact that the magazine tube could be lost was a definite drawback of the design, though the gun was not useless without it, it could still be single loaded through the action.  Once the King patent side gate was added to the Henry to make the M1866 Winchester design the popularity of the Spencer fell drastically.