By Michael J. McAfee
The Model 1858 uniform hat, nicknamed the “Hardee hat” or the “Jeff Davis hat,” also went by the moniker “Kossuth hat,” so named in honor of Louis Kossuth (1802-1894), a man once celebrated across antebellum U.S., but hardly remembered today.
Kossuth was the democratic governor of Hungary during the doomed revolutions of 1848 in Europe. After Russian armies crushed his government in 1849, he fled to Ottoman Turkey. Offered asylum in Great Britain and the United States, he arrived in the U.S. in 1851. Greeted as a great champion of democracy and honored with parades, he spoke before Congress in an attempt to raise funds for a restoration of democracy in Hungary. Portraits of Kossuth typically show him in a brimmed hat, usually adorned with an ostrich feather.
A few years later, in 1855, the U.S. military adopted a uniform hat for new regiments of cavalry and, in 1858, for all branches of the service. This hat, the Model 1858, bore a striking resemblance to the hat by Kossuth. The new hat was informally named for the respected Hungarian statesman. Its other common names honored two men who went on to become Confederates: William Hardee, who served in the U.S. cavalry in the 1850s, and Jefferson Davis, who held the office as U.S. Secretary of War when the military implemented the first uniform hats.
The hats, worn by regulars and volunteers during the war, assumed a variety of shapes and styles. Evidence suggests Confederates converted them for their use. Union army “slouch hats” were actually Model 1858 hats worn without insignia. In the Iron Brigade of the Army of the Potomac, the men were known as the “Black Hats.”
No matter what it was called or how configured, the Model 1858 proved essential headgear.
MI Senior Editor Michael J. McAfee is a curator at the West Point Museum at the United States Military Academy, and author of numerous books. He has curated major museum exhibitions, and has contributed images and authoritative knowledge to other volumes and projects. The photographs reproduced here are from his collection.
Louis Kossuth wears his touring attire, though his distinctive hat is without a feather.
Lt. Col. John Kimball of the 15th Massachusetts Infantry displays his regulation uniform hat on the photographer’s table. It has the proper embroidered eagle side pin and feathers held in place with a knit rosette and button.