When thinking about how quilts were made back then, they were pieced together with scraps and using new fabric for a quilt was blasphemy. There wasn't commercial batting as mentioned before, so they used whatever they could come up with: old blankets and quilts that were too full of holes to serve their purpose, left over flannel from baby diapers and probably worn wool coats that were pieced together. Not sure what information you will find here but this is the link for the International Quilt Museum at the University of Nebraska. It might help you.
http://www.quiltstudy.org/ here are some other interesting sites:
http://worldquilts.quiltstudy.org/am...ement/sanitary http://www.womenfolk.com/quilting_history/civilwar.htm http://www.patternsfromhistory.com/civil_war/