Western sack coat resides in the New York State Military Museum with excellent provenance. Accordingly, it was a Confederate jacket worn by Captain James Hughes, 4th New York Heavy Artillery, while he was a prisoner at Andersonville. The coat is in poor condition, and may have looked quite different before was worn to flinders and repaired in several spots. To start with, coat follows the essential characteristics of depot sack coats. It is made of domestic jeans, or satinet. The color, which probably faded from gray, is now tan. It has an exterior pocket on the left breast. The bottom button was set considerably above the bottom edge of the coat. Only one of the original buttons remains intact: a black horn, two-hole button. Finally, the body appears to be four-piece, and flairs over the hips. However, the coat also displays anomalies. It has two-piece sleeves; the coat extends well below the cuff line; and it has a five-button. Additionally, the collar is missing, if indeed it ever had one, and the bottom front edge is cut away, sweeping up and inwards. Considering the number of repairs and patches on the coat, it seems likely that the standing collar worn out, and was simply removed and the neck hole sewn closed. Likewise, the front was probably originally of one uniform length, and was cut away due to wear, and repaired by simply closing the seam where the fabric was still intact. In any case, Hughes Confederate coat provides us with another example of a mid-war, Western depot, sack coat. Images courtesy of the New York State Military Museum. From adolphusconfederateuniforms/the-confederate-depot-sack-coat-an-overlooked-garment.html
Posted on: Fri, 11 Apr 2014 12:51:54 +0000
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