Please see this post of mine on /r/warcollege: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/52lqsv/was_the_distribution_of_uniforms_in_the/d7lb45z/

Edit: I'll just post it in its entirety.

When the Confederate Army was formed in early 1861, the various units of private militiamen and volunteers mustered in wore a wild profusion of uniforms - civilian clothing, quasi-military outfits made by mothers and sisters, and militia company uniforms that ranged from French-inspired Fire Zouaves to Revolutionary War-esque blues and bucks. This clearly would not do for a country which, above all else, sought to be recognized as a full member of the community of nations. Accordingly, the Confederacy established a national uniform standard. The regulations specified that the uniform of the Confederate Army would consist of a cadet gray wool frock coat, sky blue wool trousers, and a French-style gray kepi.

This never happened. The regulation may have remained on the books, but it was a pure fantasy; if for no other reason than because the Confederacy lacked the infrastructure to produce any regulation uniform for the first year or so of the war. Instead, the Confederacy adopted what is known as the Commutation System while they built up the war industry to properly equip their armies. Under this system, in theory, the soldiers would acquire their own clothing, and the government would reimburse them for the cost. The Commutation System never really worked very well, and for a variety of reasons: among them, the weakness of southern industry, the scarcity and expense of cloth, and the unreliability of the Confederate postal system. The summer of 1862 was very possibly the nadir of the southern soldier's material wealth. Lee's soldiers, following months and months of campaigning, first in Virginia and then in Maryland, were most raggedly equipped, being dressed in a profusion of styles: short jackets and frock coats, mostly of jeancloth or cassimere (both rather coarse wool-cotton blends), felt slouch hats and kepis, boots and brogans - if they were lucky enough to have them. British observers noted that the western Confederates from around this time were almost wholly lacking in any kind of a uniform military appearance.

In early 1862, the Confederacy began transitioning away from the commutation system and to the depot system that would supply their armies for the remainder of the war. The depots were large, regional government-run factories established for the production of clothing and accoutrements. They represented only a part of the Confederacy's remarkable effort to produce war materiel; in addition to these, rifle works in Richmond, Virginia, and Fayetteville, North Carolina produced small arms; Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond founded cannon; the Confederate Powderworks in Augusta, Georgia supplied, well, powder in large quantities. For a nation that had very limited industry in 1860, the improvements made by the middle of the war were quite astonishing.

In any event, the largest and most effective depots were at Richmond, Virginia and Columbus, Georgia. The former supplied the eastern armies and the latter the western, but there were several smaller depots scattered throughout the south. By the time they were up and running, it had been tacitly admitted that the regulation uniform could not be manufactured in sufficient quantity. Instead, each depot manufactured a slightly different uniform, but of largely similar style: a short jacket of "gray" (anywhere from faded brown to steel blue, really) jeancloth or cassimere predominated, along with trousers of a similar fabric and color and the aforementioned kepi. These depots were never able to entirely equip the Confederate forces - slouch hats remained common - and this was especially true of the west; generally the eastern Confederates were the closest to uniformly equipped. But they produced a prodigious amount of clothing, enough to ensure that the Confederate soldier of 1863-1864 could generally expect at least one jacket and a couple of pairs of trousers a year. The myth of the ragged rebel is not entirely untrue, but it is conditional on time and place.

Late in the war, the failing Confederacy began to lean more and more heavily on imports brought through the blockade. Along with food, weapons, munitions, and accoutrements, the Confederacy imported cloth as well. Beginning in 1863, Richmond Depot began to manufacture jackets and trousers of English blue-gray kersey cloth in addition to items made from domestic jean cloth. By 1864, the Confederacy was importing entire uniforms - the English Tait jackets being the most common type.

I should mention that, in addition to this, two Confederate states, North Carolina and Georgia, manufactured uniforms independently from the central government. North Carolina adopted its own regulation uniform for state troops early in the war, consisting of a gray single-breasted sack coat and gray trousers, generally of domestic cloth. By 1862, this had given way to a shell jacket slightly different from those produced by Confederate depots. However, despite the almost miraculous efforts North Carolina made to set up a war industry, they were never entirely able to supply their soldiers. Some regiments received state uniforms, while others were supplied by the national government.