Hats Worn During the Revolutionary War: A Complete Guide

American soldiers and civilians wore several types of headgear during the Revolutionary War, but the cocked hat — later called a tricorne — was the most recognizable military style.

Look closely at a 1777 sketch of the Continental Army’s North Carolina Brigade and you’ll spot at least three different hats in a single frame: a cocked hat on a mounted officer, a possible leather cap on a soldier in a hunting shirt, and a broad-brimmed hat shielding a wagoner from the summer sun. That variety is the real story of Revolutionary War headgear. There was no single standardized hat across the army, and anyone claiming otherwise has flattened a messy, supply-starved reality into a tidy myth.

The sections below break down what was actually worn, who wore it, and where the popular assumptions go wrong.

The Cocked Hat: The Closest Thing To A Standard

The cocked hat was the dominant military style of the era, formed by turning up three sides of a felt brim. Modern writers call it a tricorne, but that term came later — eighteenth-century descriptions almost always use “cocked hat.”

Continental versions were typically black felt, often edged with white wool tape. That trim carried meaning: white signaled infantry, while yellow marked artillery. A black ribbon cockade sat on the left front, held by a cord and button, and after France entered the war in support of the United States, the cockade shifted to black and white.

The Museum of the American Revolution holds a surviving Massachusetts cocked hat dated 1775–1800, made of felt, linen, and pewter. It belonged to Thomas Noyes III or his son Thomas, both Massachusetts militia participants. Telling detail: old stitching holes reveal the hat was reshaped from a 1770s style into its present form — a reminder that a surviving hat is not proof of one exact wartime pattern.

Officers wore cocked hats too. The 1777 North Carolina Brigade sketch shows a mounted officer in a cocked hat, coat, and shoulder belt.

Who Wore What: Headgear By Role

Headgear tracked role and supply far more than any regulation. Some units got proper cocked hats; others made do with whatever the quartermaster could scrounge.

• Continental infantry: Black felt cocked hats with white wool tape trim and a black cockade.
• Artillery: Same basic form, but marked with yellow trim instead of white.
• Leather caps: Leather headgear was frequently worn by Continental Army members; the 1777 sketch depicts one soldier in a hunting shirt with a cap that may have been leather.
• Wagoners: A 25 May 1779 clothing estimate from Peter Scull specified wagoners’ “small hats, narrow brimmed,” with narrow white binding and expressly “not to be cock’d.”
• Washington’s Commander-in-Chief’s Guard: Round black hats with a distinctive black bear-fur crest, worn with blue coats trimmed in yellow or buff.
• Hessian grenadiers: Tall caps produced in the 1770s in Hesse-Cassel (present-day Germany), including an ornate brass plate bearing a crowned, rampant lion — the symbol of Hesse-Cassel.
• Philadelphia Associators: A volunteer regiment that reinforced Washington and Congress along the Delaware River in December 1776, with its own distinctive hat style.

Why Uniformity Didn’t Happen Until Late

Standardization efforts formally intensified in 1779, not at the war’s start. Congress authorized the commander in chief on 23 March 1779 to prescribe uniform colors, facings, cut, and fashions according to supply conditions, and approved Major General Friedrich von Steuben’s regulations on 29 March 1779.

Even then, reality lagged badly. Congress established blue as the Continental Army coat color in 1779, yet many units kept wearing brown or green coats through the war — shortages, dye problems, and transportation difficulties saw to that. Hat appearance followed the same pattern; it should never be treated as uniform across all regiments or years.

A Common Mistake Worth Correcting

The most persistent error is treating “tricorne” as the only correct period term. “Cocked hat” is the historically safer label, and museum descriptions lean on it for good reason.

The second error is assuming every Continental soldier wore a black tricorne with identical trim. State units, branches, militia, wagoners, officers, allied troops, and supply conditions produced significant variation — a shape alone does not reliably identify a wearer’s army, rank, or exact year.

If you’re putting together a period-accurate impression and want gear that holds up, our tested roundup of Revolutionary War hat replicas covers what actually survives wear. For authoritative documentation, the U.S. Army Center of Military History maintains a Continental Army historical overview worth reading alongside any purchase.