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I agree with SteelChickenShooter.....I owned a light 30-06 and a 338 magnum that felt much harsher on the shoulder than some of my hotter 45-70 handloads ! My 400 grain handloads pushed to about 1350 fps are like shooting my .243 Winchester light varmint rifle and actually feels like less felt recoil to me anyway !
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Those are very light loads. Some of the hotter 45-70 loads will be pushing a 400 gr bullet approaching 2100 fps. That works out to just under 50 ft lbs of recoil. A little more than a 375 H&H mag shooting a 270 gr bullet at 2700 fps and considerably more than a 338 mag shooting a 250 gr bullet at 2700 fps.
That said a 400 gr at 1300-1400 fps will work on most any animal.
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since thousands of buffalo were killed with that round I'll assume its good for anything in North America.
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This is a misconception. The 45-70 was designed for the miltary and for shooting indians, not buffalo. It was considered underpowered for buffalo, but was used occasionally because it was commonly available. The serious buffalo hunters used much larger more powerful guns starting with .50 caliber.
By 1900 the 45-70 was for all purposes dead and it lay dormant until being revived in the 1970's by Marlin. Other than being used briefly by the military in the indian wars it never really saw much use, especially as a hunting round. Newer loads and bullets have made it possible to do things with the round that were not possible in the 1870's.