I've always thought it was a Henry. However, the Henry was not the first repeater, as has been said. There was the Colt percussion, Maynard breechloader, and the Spencer. Perhaps there are even more that came before the Henry.
If I remember my Gettysburg battle correctly, it was John Buford's cavalry using Spencers that kept the Rebs from advancing to the high ground on the opening day of battle.
That's quite true. As I think I said above, the Henrys themselves were extremely expensive, and only 16,000 of them were used in the Civil War - almost entirely by the Union. The Spencers weren't a uniform weapon of any army during the war, though a lot of cavalry regiments did use them. The uniform cavalry weapon was (or grew to be, anyway) the Sharps breachloading carbine, which still fired something like 12-15 rounds a minute (still a hell of a lot faster than the standard muzzle loaders).
From what I've read, the Henry generally lacked in accuracy and power, but with sixteen shots you don't need a whole lot of either. But still, I agree - one hell of a pretty looking gun.
