Emmeran Bliemel followed a circuitous route that took him from his native Bavaria to the Saint Vincent Abbey near Latrobe and then to a Catholic parish in Nashville, Tenn.

His final stop was a Civil War battlefield in Georgia, where he was killed in 1864.

Copies of documents and photographs telling the story of Father Bliemel, the first Catholic chaplain to die in action, will be featured in a museum show opening Friday at Saint Vincent College.

Father Bliemel, a Benedictine priest, will be part of a three-part Civil War exhibit in the college’s McCarl Gallery.

The second element will include artifacts and images linked to Westmoreland County’s role in the War Between the States. Those items will augment a traveling exhibit that looks at “The Civil War In Pennsylvania.”

“The Coverlet Casualty” is the name of the third portion of the exhibit. It deals with the war’s destructive effects on a major mid-Atlantic manufacturing industry. That part of the display is the work of student curator Emily Davis, a senior history and theology major at Saint Vincent.

A coverlet is a woven bed covering, made from cotton and wool on a large loom in an artisan’s shop. In the 19th century, the weavers were usually men, Lauren Churilla said. Ms. Churilla is curator of the college’s Foster and Muriel McCarl coverlet collection and gallery.

The McCarl collection consists of 422 handwoven coverlets made between 1830 and 1860. The McCarls donated the items to Saint Vincent in 2004; selected coverlets have been on display in a gallery named for the donor couple since 2008.

The local artifacts in the exhibit are mostly on loan from the Westmoreland County Historical Society. They include items used in war such as a rifle, sword and its sheath, and items used in daily life like women’s gowns and a child’s dress.

In addition to two photos of Father Bliemel, the exhibit includes copies of documents dealing with his Confederate military service and his other efforts to aid the South.

Born in 1831, Father Bliemel received his early education at the Benedictine Order’s Metten Abbey, near Deggendorf, Bavaria. He came to the United States at age 19 and continued his studies at Saint Vincent Abbey, where he was ordained as a priest. When the Civil War began, Father Bliemel was serving a Catholic parish in Nashville. In 1864 he was named chaplain for the 10th Tennessee Infantry.

Earlier in the war, Father Bliemel had several run-ins with Union authorities. “He was arrested several times,” Ms. Churilla said. “The first time was for trying to smuggle morphine to the South.” Many drugs, including morphine, a common pain killer, were in very short supply in the Confederacy.

The Catholic priest later was accused of anonymously writing treasonous articles for newspapers with Southern sympathies, but eventually he was released, she said.

Father Bliemel had a reputation of going to the front lines with stretcher bearers. On Aug. 31, 1864, he was serving with the 10th Tennessee during the Battle of Jonesboro, south of Atlanta. He had been giving last rites to a wounded soldier on the battlefield when he was killed by artillery fire. He died a month before he would have turned 33.

The Civil War ultimately delivered a death blow to the hand weaving of coverlets, Ms. Churilla said. At least three factors were involved.

The first was a shortage of a major raw material — Southern cotton.

The second factor was that male weavers volunteered for army service, returned to their home countries or switched to making more utilitarian blankets, Ms. Churilla said.

And during the war, industrialization intensified. By the time the conflict ended in 1865, hand weavers no longer were able to compete with large factories, she said.

Ms. Davis, the student curator, said the 150th anniversary of the Civil War offered an opportunity to link the history of the coverlet industry to broader economic and social factors. “We have this fantastic collection of donated coverlets, and we can tie their history together with what was going on in the war,” she said. “Not many people know about the story of Father Bliemel … what a good way to help people learn about it.”

“The Civil War in Pennsylvania” exhibit has been traveling around the state for several years as part of the commonwealth’s 150th anniversary commemoration of the war. The show was created by the Senator John Heinz History Center.

It includes four life-size human figures from the era as well as a lifelike representation of Dog Jack. The canine was the mascot for a company of Pittsburgh firefighters who joined the 102nd Pennsylvania Infantry during the Civil War.