What Uniforms Did the Continental Army Wear?

“Redcoat” is shorthand for a British soldier. But what did the Continental Army wear to the Revolution? War broke out in 1775, but a standardized blue “American” military uniform was not adopted until 1779. Even after that, a uniform for every soldier remained more of an ideal than an economic reality. If necessity is the mother of invention, then the hodgepodge of regional uniforms and homespun solutions soldiers wore to fight for their new nation marked the beginnings of a uniquely American identity.

“In the early years of the Revolution, the Continental Army looks like a bunch of civilians. It was a sharp contrast to the lines of red-coated British and the Hessian troops in blue with their tall brass caps,” says Matthew Skic, director of collections and exhibitions at the Museum of the American Revolution. “Plenty of clothing ends up in the American army that is not military dress, but civilian clothing pressed into use,” says Matthew Keagle, curator at Fort Ticonderoga.

The Continental Congress could not collect taxes to finance its war with one of the greatest economic powers in Europe. Instead, both Congress and individual colonies printed their own money, though it was not always backed by gold or silver. Wealthy citizens like Robert Morris extended their personal credit to fund the war, adding to international credit from France, the Netherlands and Spain. The patchwork financing mirrored the patchwork styles that soldiers wore to the battlefield: General Washington described his army as “half compleat and of a thousand different Colours as to uniform.”

“Uniforms reflect the army and nation a soldier is fighting for. If an army is without a uniform, what does that say about a country’s ability to exist and provide for its soldiers and citizens? Washington is so attuned to clothing and dress because it’s important to represent who you are,” says Keagle.

What a soldier wore to the Revolution depended largely on where they were from. “Some colonies are more well-funded than others,” Skic says. “New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey were recruiting and equipping men in their own fashion, with totally separate uniforms based on what they could get and the tastes of officers,” Keagle says. Southern colonies like South Carolina and Georgia, meanwhile, struggled. “Their economies were smaller, and the British occupied Georgia after 1778 and Charleston until 1782, which cut off access to materials,” Keagle says.

“Some of Washington’s men lack the necessary layers they need to survive the weather. He wants something affordable that gives them a uniform appearance while expressing something about their cause and identity,” Keagle says. Washington was ready with an economically-friendly—and distinctly American—solution.

The hunting shirt was an Anglo-American invention developed on the Western frontier and first introduced to Washington by sharpshooters from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Unlike the typical military uniform made from imported British wool, the hunting shirt was made of linen, a product Americans could grow and process domestically.

Hunting shirts required only plain sewing, not the extensive tailoring required for a military jacket, meaning it was easier to make, mend, and fit a variety of bodies on the move. Washington praised the garment in a general order dated July 24, 1776:

“No dress can be cheaper, nor more convenient, as the wearer may be cool in the warm weather and warm in cool weather by putting on under-cloathes which will not change the outward dress, Winter or Summer—besides which it is a dress justly supposed to carry no small terror to the enemy, who think every such person (so dressed) is a complete marksman.”

Despite its advantages, the hunting shirt was a flop. The main issue, Keagle points out, was its everyday look. “Uniforms need to be legible to enemies and allies, and the hunting shirt fails to be a garment recognized by outsiders,” he says. “It doesn’t set up the Continental Army as a peer military force. It works as a stopgap for the rank and file, but Washington isn’t painted in this garment. Washington’s image needed to convey a sense of metropolitan, international dialogue that is military dress at this time period,” Keagle says.

Pre-Revolutionary War militia coats were often red, like this one worn by the Boston company commanded by John Hancock. “At the beginning of the war especially, red uniforms in American lines were not uncommon,” says Keagle. “Until July 1776, it was not a war for independence but for colonists’ rights as part of the British Empire. Clothing expressed that Anglo identity baked into early America.”

Matching one’s mortal enemy isn’t just awkward; it could be downright dangerous. Pennsylvania cavalry wore uniforms nearly identical to their British counterparts, prompting Washington to complain:

“I could wish Colo. Moylan would put his Regt in any other Uniform than Scarlet, because I am convinced that many Mistakes and perhaps some fatal ones will happen from our Dragoons being cloathed in Red and Blue which is the same with the Queens Dragoons.”

Sometimes, wearing red was a matter of economic necessity. Captured uniforms were valuable to the chronically under-equipped Continental Army. In 1776, John Paul Jones captured a year’s worth of winter clothing headed to the British army and sent it to American troops. But by 1781, when the King of Spain gifted the Continental Army nearly 4,000 captured British uniforms, the red coats were disassembled and dyed brown before they were given to Washington’s men. “By this period in the war, they wanted something that looked less British,” Keagle says.

In 1775, Congress attempted to create a national uniform of brown coats with distinctions for each regiment made in the facings (collars, lapels, cuffs) in contrasting colors. “Brown cloth was cheaper; blue, red and buff were becoming more expensive to procure and more sought-after,” Keagle says. Brown also sent a patriotic message: “It evoked homespun cloth, which was part of resistance movements before the war, when colonists stopped importing British cloth,” he says.

In 1779, the official coat color of the Continental Army changed to blue, a hue favored by Washington and the troops, Keagle says. Different-colored facings indicated a soldier’s region: white for New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut; buff for New York and New Jersey; red for Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland; and blue with white buttonholes for North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. “Even then, it’s an ideal. It was rarely achieved,” says Keagle. “In the far South—Georgia, the Carolinas—there is very little evidence that any got the uniform described,” Keagle says. “Sometimes officers are able to get it, but not necessarily the rank and file.”

By 1782, a single uniform was introduced to emphasize unity over regional differences. “They did away with regional trim and every soldier wore blue turned up with red,” Keagle says. The shift from redcoats to hunting shirts to jackets of brown, then blue, mirrored Americans’ shifting sense of identity from British subjects to allied colonies to a unified nation defining its own symbols and culture.