In the summer of 1775, when all the preparations for the War of the Revolution were in a most unsettled and depressing condition, especially the supplies for the Continental army, the Provincial Congress made a demand on the people for thirteen thousand warm coats to be ready for the soldiers by cold weather. There were no great contractors then as now to supply the cloth and make the garments, but by hundreds of hearthstones throughout the country wool-wheels and hand-looms were started eagerly at work, and the order was filled by the handiwork of patriotic American women. In the record book of some New England towns may still be found the lists of the coat-makers. In the inside of each coat was sewed the name of the town and the maker. Every soldier volunteering for eight months' service was given one of these homespun, home-made, all-wool coats as a bounty. So highly were these "Bounty Coats" prized, that the heirs of soldiers who were killed at Bunker Hill before receiving their coats were given a sum of money instead. The list of names of soldiers who then enlisted is known to this day as the "Coat Roll," and the names of the women who made the coats might form another roll of honor. The English sneeringly called Washington's army the "Homespuns." It was a truthful nickname, but there was deeper power in the title than the English scoffers knew. The starting up of power-looms and the wonderful growth of woollen manufacture did not crowd out homespun as speedily in America as in England. When the poet Whittier set out from the Quaker farmhouse to go to Boston to seek his fortune, he wore a homespun suit every part of which, even the horn buttons, was of domestic manufacture. Many a man born since Whittier has grown to manhood clothed for every-day wear wholly with homespun; and many a boy is living who was sent to college dressed wholly in a "full-cloth" suit, with horn buttons or buttons made of discs of heavy leather. During the Civil War spinning and weaving were revived arts in the Confederate cities; and, as ever in earlier days, proved a most valuable economic resource under restricted conditions. In the home of a friend in Charleston, South Carolina, an old, worm-eaten loom was found in a garret where it had lain since the embargo in 1812. It was set up in 1863, and plantation carpenters made many like it for neighbors and fellow-citizens. All women in the mountain districts knew how to use the loom, and taught weaving to many others, both white and black. A portion of the warp, which was cotton, was spun at home; more was bought from a cotton-factory. My friend sacrificed a great number of excellent wool-mattresses; this wool was spun into yarn and used for weft, and formed a most grateful and dignified addition to the varied, grotesque, and interesting makeshifts of the wardrobe of the Southern Confederacy.