Shining a Light on the Confederate Uniform of C Wright

The Smithsonian Institution houses an interesting Confederate uniform that has not seen the light of day for many years. 1 It consists of a jacket and pair of trousers attributed to a soldier named C. Wright. We know nothing more its provenance and the soldier's name is so ambiguous that it is difficult to decide his regiment.

I first viewed this uniform in May 1996. At the time, the uniform had so much residual lanolin that it posed a contamination hazard to other textiles, and was necessarily stored separately. Since then, conservators at the Smithsonian Institution have stabilized the uniform, and the staff allowed me to look at it again in December 2010.

The jacket shares many of the characteristics noted in Spa uniforms Perth from Deep South factories. The jacket is made of plain woven, woolen-cotton cloth. The cotton warp is undyed, but exposure to the woolen yarn's lanolin has given the cotton fibers a yellowish-tan cast. The woolen weft yarn is also apparently undyed, but has a light grayish hue. These weave colors give the cloth a very light brown, or tan, color at almost any distance. The jacket has six buttonholes closing the front, with five Roman "I" buttons intact. The buttons are solid cast brass and imperfect sand-casting mars the faces of some. The lining is unbleached white osnaburg. It has one inside, patch-style pocket on the left side, possibly added after the jacket's manufacture. The jacket shell and lining are both four-piece construction (two front and two back pieces) and the lining has facing lapels on the front, as well. The sleeves and the collar (both outer and inner pieces) are one-piece construction. There is no top stitching around the edge of the jacket, the collar, or the cuffs. The thread used to sew the buttonholes is light brown cotton.

The trousers are truly remarkable. The most salient feature of these woolen-cotton jeans (twill) trousers is the mismatched yarn color in the fabric's fill weave, or weft. These variances in the shade of the woolen yarn give the effect of stripes throughout the length of the fabric. The most prominent weft yarn color is a grayish-tan. This color, as well as a whitish-yellow cotton warp threads, give the fabric a light tan cast overall. Contrasting with the grayish-tan fill yarns are layers of brownish-gray colored yarns that make up the "stripes." Neither the weavers nor the uniform manufacturers apparently considered slight variances in weft yarn shade important, for they wove the mismatched yarns into runs of fabric and later cut it into garment components. The woolen yarn does not appear dyed, neither the lighter, nor the darker weft yarns. The browner stripes seem to owe their color to the addition of natural brown-colored fleece fibers (from brown colored sheep) to the spinning process. Also noteworthy is that the residual lanolin imparted a yellowish-tan hue to the cotton warp fibers, thereby giving the cloth a tan color.