I have used both 30's repros and civil war fabrics. I guess it depends on how authentic a look you are going for. For your husband's quilt, I would find a civil war era design (pattern) and use ALL civil war reproductions. You can add in something like natural colored muslin if you have to. I'm sure they had plenty of that back then.
I have a wall quilt that I LOVE... 16 patches of civil war fabrics... but some of the fabrics are not CW, they just blended in well with the CWs so I used them. Now as I look at that quilt, those are the fabrics that bother me. I wish I had used all CW prints.