Nearly forgotten amid the Union victories of 1863 was the Union attempt to bring the war back to where it started: Charleston, South Carolina. The siege of Charleston became the site of numerous engineering innovations that presaged warfare of the next 60 years, as the North tried to take the city and fort that symbolized the birth of secession.
The history of cotton clothing has followed an interesting path, including a period of a few decades in the United States when cotton represented ingenuity, resilience, and patriotism itself.