I found reference to "grey-blue Kentucky jean trousers" in the book, "American Civil War Armies: Volunteer militia". I believe the author is Philip Katchen. I will have to recheck. The book has a photo of soldier from Louisiana/ Orleans Battalion of artillery wearing the pants referred to as "grey-blue Kentucky jean trousers.
Exactly. Kentucky jeans was a typical cloth of the time, so the person would be referring to trousers made of Kentucky jeans, which were colored grey-blue, but he would
only be referring to trousers made of that kind of fabric. He could just as easily have said someone was wearing a "grey-blue Kentucky jean coat."
Edited to add: The Country Cloth/Chas. R. Childs website also contradicts Wright, and backs up what I'm saying, though he's writing informally, for reenactors. I'd be looking in places like the OED, or much better yet, searching primary sources, if I wanted to prove that jeans=trousers, but it's not worth it to me, because I'm pretty comfortable with what I've seen over the years, and I'm not making the unusual claim that Wright is. For what it's worth, if one wants a modern guru to believe, one can't get any better than Charlie Childs when it comes to jeans, LOL! You may already be aware of this, but he was one of the pioneers in reproducing and encouraging jeancloth on Confederate reenactors.
Also from "Just a Few Words that they Used" at
http://www.angelfire.com/me/reenact/terms.html
"Jeans/ a twilled cotton cloth. Actually a "jean" can be any material. The definition depends on the weave (always a 2/1 twill) not the material. CW period jeans was most commonly wool on a cotton, a cotton wrap. "Jeans" meant clothing from "jean"..
Unfortunately, the author wrote that in an unclear way, since "material" has two meanings, fiber, and fabric. The author means that jean can be of any type of
fiber, such as silk, wool, linen, etc., since it refers to the weave, but as he/she states, the most common fabric called jeans in the period was a wool weft and cotton warp.
I saw other references to jeans being a trouser and that they referred to the pants worn by Confederate soldiers.
Yes, it was typically used for Confederate uniforms, both coats and trousers, because it was cheap and sturdy.
This just a few instances where it would seem Mr. Wright got the connection of the word jean/trouser. I could be misunderstanding the terms.
I think you are. Unless there are period examples of "jeans" being used alone to refer to "trousers," I think that Wright is just wrong in this case. That's why footnotes are so important, and their lack is so annoying. Since you provided a footnote in the first post, it's easy to track the information back to Wright, but I'm assuming Wright has no footnote on this to back up his claim, so the trail is lost, and at that point, I've noticed that people tend to split, based on whether they approach history as science or religion. If it's as religion, then he's an authoritative leader who should be taken on faith. If it's as science, then evidence is everything, and he has none to offer, for an unusual claim.