Notes
1) U.S. ARMY FABRICS  
On 17 December 1857 the Charleston (South Carolina) Mercury carried an advertisement from the Office of Army Clothing and Equipage in Philadelphia (Schuylkill Arsenal) soliciting bids for furnishing by contract Army Supplies and Materials. The ad read in part:
"…63,000 yards 6-4 dark blue cloth (indigo wool dyed) twilled cloth, weighing 21 ounces per yard
120,000 yards 6-4 sky-blue (indigo wool dyed) twilled cloth, weighing 22 ounces per yard
10,000 yards 6-4 dark blue flannel, wool (indigo dyed)…"
Advertisements similar to the above also appeared during the Civil War in northern newspapers. One such ad appeared in newspapers in Philadelphia on 3 September 1862. It, too, listed cloth, dark blue (indigo wool dyed) 21 ounces per yard 54" wide and 10 ½ ounces per yard 27" wide, kersey, sky-blue (indigo wool dyed) 22 ounces per yard 54" wide and 11 ounces per yard 27" wide.
The Table of Textile Fabrics in the as yet unpublished 1865 Quartermaster Manual lists the following:
6-4 dark blue woolen cloth, pure indigo dyed, 21 ounces per yard
6-4 sky blue woolen kersey, pure indigo dyed, 22 ounces per yard
3-4 sky blue woolen kersey, pure indigo dyed, 11 ounces per yard
3-4 dark blue flannel, pure indigo dyed, 5 ½ ounces per yard
Listed under Clothing in the same manual are "Uniform coats. - …for all enlisted foot-men, shall be a single breasted frock, of dark blue cloth…All enlisted men of the cavalry and light artillery, shall wear a uniform jacket of dark blue cloth…For fatigue purposes - a sack coat of dark blue flannel…Trousers, - except for enlisted men of ordnance, sky blue kersey…for ordnance men dark blue kersey…Great coats for footmen - of sky blue kersey…Great coats for mounted men - of sky blue kersey…
The fabrics used by the Army in the mid-19th Century were coarse and heavy (except the flannel) by 21st Century standards. Few Americans today would choose to wear such textiles except in exceptional or peculiar circumstances. The kersey and dark blue cloth were closely woven with raised naps and meant for hard, outdoor service. The primary difference between the coat cloth and the kersey was the texture; the weight difference was negligible. The coat cloth, like the kersey, was twilled but the size of yarns used was finer, the number of yarns per square inch was greater; hence a somewhat finer texture in the finished cloth. The flannel was comparable in weight to many modern wool flannels but again was a coarser textured fabric.
When comparing modern textiles to historic textiles try to keep in mind that most historic textiles have been worn so that the original finish has been distressed to some degree. Over more than a century of existence fabrics dry out and become brittle, this too, affects the appearance and the "feel". They will feel even more harsh now than when new. The last factor is color. The same factors that affect the general appearance of the textiles also affect color, along with unseen environmental factors. The other influence on color is soiling. The fact that most of the surviving garments have been worn, handled and stored in less than ideal conservation conscious conditions has an impact on their appearance more than a century later.
To my knowledge there is no one yet alive who saw any of the above mentioned fabrics when new. Any recreated fabric must then be an interpretation of the original item based on the information and technologies available. Also factored into this equation must be the realization that hundreds of thousands of yards of these fabrics will not be needed.
When the consumer begins to compare and contrast the offerings of the different suppliers he may fail to see an appreciable difference between goods. In that case he should probably buy the less expensive item. Just keep in mind that in fabrics, as in most other things, a relationship generally exists between price and quality.
County Cloth has the best fabrics for Civil War era enlisted men's clothing. My rating of County Cloth fabrics is anything but objective, however, since I own the company. The best way to make an informed decision is to combine the information presented here with your own observations of the originals.

2) FATIGUE BLOUSE PRODUCTION
Synopsis of Sack Coat Contracts from "U.S. Army Quartermaster Contracts, 1861-1865," compiled by E.J. Coates and F.C. Gaede from National Archives, RG 217, Treasury Department Records, Entry 236, QMD Contracts (Lutherville, MD: Production Draft No. 1, December 1993).
A total of 142 contracts for sack coats were found in the compilation. Some 25 were "For Making & Trimming," which represented open-ended contracts to construct coats from material already on hand. This was usually, but not invariably, material from Schuylkill Arsenal for coats to be delivered to the Philadelphia Depot. However, one contract with Bryant N. Lanhan dated July 1, 1864 for 12,000 sack coats to be delivered to Cincinnati specified the coats were to be "Made and trimmed in the same manner as those now being manufactured at the Clothing Manufactory in Cincinnati, Ohio; the blouse flannel and trimmings to be furnished by the U.S." His payment for each coat was not specified, and no note was found to determine the quantity he delivered. (Page 169)
We know 145,883 "Blouses, Lined" and 116,051 "Blouses, Unlined" were made at the Cincinnati Depot between May 1861 and June 1865. Quantities made at other depot(s) are unknown to the author at this time, but may be in a complete copy of the 1865 Quartermaster Report.
For the contracts that specified a quantity, a total of at least 3,641,000 coats were to be delivered, as follows:
000's omitted
Phila. Depot
NY Depot
Cincinnati Depot
Total
Lined
558
797
444
1,799
Unlined
439
442
295
1,176
Not specified
170
284
212
666
Total
1,167
1,523
951
3,641

There were 14 contractors who received contracts totaling over 100,000 sack coats each, as follows:

James Boylan
Newark, NJ
1862-64
Thomas Carhart
NYC
1862-63
William Deering
Portland, ME
1861-65
R.B. Esler
Philadelphia, PA
1863
Henry Foster
Philadelphia, PA
1864
Jeremiah Garthwaite
Newark, NJ
1863-64
Hanford & Browning
NYC
1861
Joseph Lee
NYC
1861-63
Joseph Lea (same guy?)
NYC
1864
Wm. & James Ludlow
Newark, NJ
1862-64
John T. Martin
NYC
1862-64
(Mrs.) H. J. Moore
Newton, MA
1862
Joseph Page
Philadelphia, PA
1863-64
Alvin Rose
NYC
1864

The two contractors named "Lea" and Lee" may be the same individual, since the dates of their contracts do not overlap. The one female contractor, Mrs. Moore, was noted in the special CW issue of Military Collector & Historian as the contractor of regulation gaiters now in Don Troiani's collection. J.T. Martin was the largest single contractor, with a total of 892,000 sack coats.

One contract with Hunt, Tillinghust & Co. Of NYC dated October 20, 1862 was for 20,000 knit sack coats, to be delivered to the Philadelphia Depot and paid for at the rate of $2.40 each. The description is for "dark blue knit blouses." (P. 142) This firm received numerous contracts for knit items, including drawers, shirts (a total of 481,258) and even uniform jackets (!) in addition to sack coats. Paul McKee illustrated what certainly looks like a knit sack coat in his article in Military Collector & Historian on the subject.
Fred Gaede, May 2001
3) FEDERAL SHELTER TENTS
Response to President Lincoln's call for volunteers in the Spring of 1861 presented the U.S. Quartermaster Department with the daunting task of clothing and equipping a military force of heretofore unimagined size. Among the most pressing needs was the provision of temporary shelter for troops in the field. Early campaigns, though limited in scope and duration in comparison with those to come, quickly proved the Army's pre-war tentage too great an incumbrance for active operations. The Federal Civil War Shelter Tent by Company Fellow Frederick C. Gaede provides a comprehensive narration of the Quartermaster Department's resolution of the problem and examination of extant examples of that solution. The first section chronicles the U.S. QMD's efforts to assort the competing interests of contractors, citizens, Army officers and troops in the field. The objective focused upon the development and adoption of a reasonably priced, portable shelter and its integration into service. First proposed for use by cavalrymen on outpost duty by Captain George McClellan in 1857, the shelter tent received scant attention from the QMD before the outbreak of hostilities. During the summer of 1861 it soon became clear that regulation field housing was too expensive to produce and too bulky to transport to suit the Army's purpose. The proliferation of rubberized products brought into service by volunteers and proposals by potential contractors provided the QMD with numerous options for consideration. Initially, Quartermaster General Meigs considered items that could serve as both tent and poncho in an effort to reduce the infantryman's burden. By August 1861, however, he decided otherwise, by ordering the purchase by contract of 10,000 shelter tent halves based on the French tent d'abri. This tentative commitment to the shelter tent lead to the production of more than 2.5 million tent halves by the end of the war.
Section Two of Mr. Gaede's monograph presents a comparative analysis of surviving shelter tents with the archival record and explanation of the methodology employed in the development of the typology. Section three addresses specific characteristics of the Federal shelter tent: Size & weight, material & reinforcements, seams & hems, buttons, buttonholes & grommets, pins, poles, & cords and markings. The concluding section of the monograph enlightens the reader with a discussion of the shelter tent's alternative uses and the origin of the "dog tent" nickname. Placed strategically throughout the work, more than 100 photos, documents and illustrations draw the story of the "lowly shelter tent" into sharp focus. The work concludes with 6 appendices the highlights of which are Appendix 1 and Appendix 5. Appendix 1 lists the contracts for shelter tents by date including the contractor name and location, quantity, contracting depot and price per unit. Along with this are compilations of "Procurement and Production by Depot." Appendix 5 presents the database of extant shelter tents surveyed detailing the size, material, number of pieces and reinforcements of each tent half.
Drawing upon the vast resources of the National Archives, soldier letters and reminiscences, the photographic record and the artifacts themselves, Mr. Gaede has skillfully combined the archival evidence with field investigation to illuminate a fascinating corner of the historical record. This monograph will prove invaluable to the historian and collector in understanding a critically important, albeit humble, piece of the Federal soldier's equipment in the Civil War.
Be the first to acquire The Federal Civil War Shelter Tent, by Frederick C. Gaede. Just send $19.95 plus $2.00 shipping to:
O'Donnell Publications, 7217 Popkins Farm Rd., Alexandria, VA 22306