We are pleased to make publicly available for the first time at auction this field-worn example of a Confederate regulation junior officer's frock coat belonging to Captain John T. Williams of West Liberty, Kentucky. Williams was a 40-year old land owner, livestock dealer, and mill operator when he was commissioned to raise a company for the state of Kentucky.  His effort succeeded and his men mustered in as Company A, 2nd Battalion Kentucky Mounted Rifles (CS), also referred to by some sources as the 2nd Battalion KY Cavalry.  According to Williams himself, his company "engaged in fighting the Home Guard of KY ever since its organization, during the time killing 30 and taking forty prisoners. One member of (the) Co. was shot by the Enemy in retaliation for the death of a notorious leader of the Home Guard."  Subsequent historical records and accounts show that Capt. Williams did in fact operate as a partisan and guerrilla throughout Kentucky during the war, even serving at times as a scout for John Hunt Morgan.

On November 25th, 1863, while on a scouting party in Morgan County, KY, the 5th Ohio Cavalry Battalion was attacked by Capt. Williams' company hidden on the bluffs of the Licking River overlooking West Liberty, KY.  A chase ensued which was recounted by a member of the 5th Ohio Cavalry Battalion, who referred to Capt. Williams as “J.T.” His account reads:

"We followed over mountains, down ravines and through pleasant vallies [sic], exchanging shots every opportunity, but we could not catch him, his horses being used to the mountains while ours were not.  At one place his command was going up a mountain and we were going down one facing it, when a lively little fight ensued across the hollow.  J. T. was wounded in the arm and on he went again.  We learned of his wound afterwards from a lady at whose house he stopped to have it dressed, and he asked her "if she had seen the Yankee hounds after the reb fox." The chase was finally abandoned ten miles from West Liberty.” 

Captain Williams did in fact survive the wound, the effects of which are still very much apparent on his surviving frock coat offered here.  Unwilling to accept defeat at the close of the war, Capt. Williams managed to elude a detachment of state troops sent to disperse his band of holdouts in September, 1865. The Louisville Daily Journal reported that the state forces “found the utmost terror prevailing” among the inhabitants “due to the “lawless bands of rebel robbers that infest the region.” Following the war, Williams returned home to West Liberty where he died in 1884.

Williams’ frock coat is a regulation example of a Confederate officer's double-breasted frock cut from cadet gray wool broadcloth.  The collar and cuff facings, as well as exterior edge welts and the interior front facings, are constructed of what is now a buff/yellow colored worsted wool serge.  The remaining U.S. Staff officer buttons are original to the coat and exceedingly common to a large number of extant CS officer garments.  Buttonholes on the chest and functional cuffs are a “welted” variety that did not use the typical buttonhole-stitch.  The body and skirt linings consists of twill woven wool/silk and wool batting with extensive deterioration.  The exterior of the coat also exhibits deterioration consistent with mothing, storage, and honest wear from field use.  The wearer's right upper sleeve shows evidence of Capt. Williams' November 1863 gunshot wound as this level of damage is not apparent at any other area of the garment.  Finally, the frock is trimmed completely in the rank of Captain, hand-sewn to the sleeves and collar in braided gilt metal tape (now tarnished).  

Exceedingly rare uniform worn by a a known Kentucky partisan, guerrilla, and scout. Provenance detailing the coat's attribution includes correspondence by a former owner of this jacket with the Kentucky Historical Society in the 1980s. It’s assumed that owner acquired the jacket from a descendant of Williams or some other source that provided its I.D. Additionally, we have included a copy of a photo of another officer in the 2nd Battalion wearing precisely the same uniform variant. Consignor relates this piece was once displayed in the museum at Perryville Battlefield in Kentucky. Ex Horse Soldier, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The entire jacket measures ~35 inches in length, its sleeves measure ~27 inches from the outside.


[Civil War, Union, Confederate, Robert E. Lee, Uniform, Revolutionary War, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Stonewall Jackson]