I have been a historic weapons supervisor for 5 years with the National Park Service. I am in charge of two six pound cannons and one 12 pounder along with several flintlock and percussion muskets. We are required to wear wool and cotton because modern material melts to the skin when it gets burned. Many of our uniforms are 20 years old. The civil war uniform I wear I have personally owned for 8 years. As bad as it sounds I have not dry cleaned it because I want it to look like I am on campaign not just issued from the quarter master. Only have brushed it clean and rinsed off mud with water. This same uniform I wear when cleaning the cannons. All of our uniforms are still soft. Light seems to do more damage to the wool than shooting black powder cannons.