Butternut and Blue in the Civil War

Borderland Sampler by Jeanne Poore, Overland Park, Kansas 2005, 91" x 91"

The quilts above and below are from a book I did a few years ago

 called Borderland in Butternut and Blue.

Butternut & Blue by Ilyse Moore, Overland Park, Kansas 38" x 38".

 Ilyse redrafted the blocks to 12 inches and added her own border.

When I taught the class on which the book is based, we used navy blue and yellow ochre to symbolize the Confederacy and the Union in the Civil War.We tend to think of Civil War colors as "the blue and the gray," but many Southern soldiers had no access to official Confederate uniforms and wore their everyday clothing made of home-dyed butternut. 

Sketch of a Missouri guerilla fighter

from the Library of Congress collection.

Guerilla fighters were referred to as "Butternuts."

Click here to see my guest blog about butternut and blue at the Kansas City Star's Pickledish site.

http://pickledish.kcstar.com/?q=node/1005

I think the color combination symbolizes the North and the South so well I've done two books on the topic.

Borderland in Butternut and Blue features a sampler quilt with some stand-alone projects.

Click here: https://www.pickledishstore.com/productDetail.php?PID=765

Buttermilk and Blue by Dorothy LeBoeuf, Rogers, Arkansas, 85" x 85",

a combination of two blocks from the Borderland book.

Butternut & Blue: Threads of the Civil War contains several pieced and appliqued designs.

It looks like none are available if you check the big online book sources (or they cost twice the original price) but a few quilt shops still have copies. Here's one online source:

http://www.aquiltersfabricgarden.com/books.html

And Quilters' Warehouse sells it. Click here:

http://www.quilterswarehouse.com/p-6533-butternut-blue-by-sunflower-co-op.aspx

I've also used the colors in my Moda collection Civil War Homefront that is in quilt shops now.

Swatches from Civil War Homefront in Sassafras Tan, Sorghum Brown and Ironclad Navy

These new reproduction prints would look great in any of the projects from either book. Below are two reproduction quilts by Karla Menaugh from the Butternut & Blue book.

Western Sun by Karla Menaugh 45" x 45"

Midnight Garden by Karla Menaugh 40" x 50"

I know it's confusing---all these Butternuts and Blues, but I like the way the words sound. And to make things even more confusing Terry Thompson and I did a fabric collection called Butternut and Blue for Moda several years ago, from which the two quilts above were made.

Civil War Uniforms or Not

There are a few questions I'm asked on a regular basis. One FAQ (frequently asked question) concerns wool comforters made from Civil War uniforms. A typical query might read like the description of the quilt above from an eBay posting a few months ago.

" This is a very nice old quilt that I am told is a Mourning Quilt. The quilt measures 90” x 70” and is extremely heavy. The top is made of pieces of men's clothing. Some of the pieces are said to be pieces of a uniform worn in the civil war."

The bidding started on that quilt at $37 which seems a reasonable price for a nicely embroidered comforter in good shape.

Not so reasonably priced are similar quilts purchased for $450 or more, purported to be pieced of Civil War uniforms. The writer who's paid this amount wants to know if I can confirm a Civil War provenance. And what is the quilt worth?

I don't do appraisals but I can usually confirm that the buyer has been taken.

These embroidered, tied wool quilts are very common. I did a search on eBay in late October and found 13 examples for sale that day with bidding ranging from $9.99 for a top to $285 (for a crib-size). They varied in skill level, detail and condition, but all were squares and/or rectangles of subdued wools.


Many were embroidered and some were finished with ties on the top.

It's easy to see why one might think these are Civil War uniforms. The fabrics are so often blue and gray.

Here are a few things to remember when considering a quilt supposedly made of Civil War uniforms.

1. Without some strong family history or other corroboration, the story is very likely to be false.

2. If there is strong evidence, consult an expert on Civil War uniforms rather than a quilt expert, as most of us are not experts on army uniforms.

3. While many Union soldiers wore uniforms of some consistent design and fabric in navy blue, Confederates wore diverse clothing of diverse fabrics, from butternut brown to Confederate "gray" to everyday clothing.

4. Confederate gray is not what we would call gray, which is a colorless pale shade of black. The Confederate uniforms I have see are what I would call blue, a pale blue wool. I have seen only a few, but the pictures here look to be made of wool fabric woven of blue and white warps and wefts, the kind of cloth we still call jeans. The dark blue yarn (probably dyed with indigo or Prussian blue) crossed with a white yarn gives a pale blue effect.

The comforters in question were made about 1890-1930, often from wool samples torn from sample books. See a book below.