Enlisted Men's Hats

Pencil drawing of the Brass Eagle that is on a Light Artillery Shako

    Enlisted men were required to have two types of hats.  A dress hat or Hardee Hat and a fatigue hat or forage cap.  From May of 1861 till October 1865 the Army bought 2,347,524 dress hats from different contractors.  The hats were to be made of black felt and were to be 6 1/4" inches tall and have a 3 1/4" brim.  In reality the contractors who made these hats made them smaller then what was ordered.  Some crowns were as short as 5 1/2" tall and the brims were 2 3/4" wide.  By regulations the Hardee Hat was to be pinned up on the left side for dismounted personnel and pinned up on the right side for mounted.  The hat was pinned up by a hook that was covered by a brass eagle badge.  One black Ostrich feather was also worn on the hat opposite the pinned up brim.  In addition to the brass eagle badge on the pinned side of the hat on the front had a brass Jager horn for the infantry, crossed cannon for the artillery and crossed sabers for the cavalry.  There was also a 5/8" regimental number and a 1" company letter appearing respectively above and below the insignia. Army issued dress hats were not very popular with many stories and letters being written on just this subject.  In general most regiments discarded the Hardee Hat at it's first opportunity.  There are some Western Federal regiments that did keep their dress hats though.  The most famous of these are regiments that were part of the Iron Brigade.  These Wisconsin and Indiana regiments also retained their frock coats through out the war.  

    The most popular hat of the war was the issue forage cap or fatigue hat.  The US Army produced 41,663 hats in its own depots and purchased 4,766,100 from separate contractors throughout the war.  In a study of existing photographs from this time period 77.5 % of the infantry men serving in the east and 85 % of the cavalry men wore this style of hat.  While in the western theater the same type of study of photos shows only 7.5 % of all troops wore this type of hat and a majority of them had no type of insignia.  The Westerners preferred the ordinary or "slouch" hat.