This quilt combines Civil War imagery with the very fabric of this conflict. Its mosaic pieced pattern uses more than forty textiles ranging from uniform cloth, coarsely woven grey cloth possibly used for army bedrolls, civilian black wool suiting, and even kid leather. The plaid and bright red and blue wool pieces indicate that the cloth was woven for uniforms worn by Union Zouave troops. Soldiers on both sides wore colorful uniforms modeled after those worn by French Zouave troops in the Crimean War (1853–1856). Outfitted with tasseled red wool caps or fezzes, plaid or blue jackets or vests with trim, and red baggy pants, Zouave troops were lauded in poems, popular songs, and in wartime images created by artists such as Winslow Homer.
The maker of this quilt took inspiration for some of the imagery from illustrations in Harper’s Weekly, the publication that kept Americans in the North informed about the latest events of the war. The silhouette of General Ulysses S. Grant on horseback at the top of the quilt appeared in an article on the fall of Vicksburg in 1863.

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