Of all of the interesting headgear associated with the American Revolution, one of the simplest forms, so simple in fact that no regular Continental units ever adopted it as an official hat, was the "Liberty Cap." During the Revolution this was generally a wool or cotton cap with the word Liberty or Liberty or Death em­broidered across its front in an opposing color. A few battalion infantry and numerous light in­fantry units wore miters with this legend emblazoned across their fronts (Congress being an­other legend), light infantry mi­ters sometimes saying Liberty or with a skull and cross bones re­placing Death, the words requir­ing more room than the shorter light infantry miter could af­ford, the skull and crossbones being more easily squeezed into the space.

But the cloth Liberty Cap has a longer and even more honor­able history than these Continen­tal miters ( covered as they are with glory), a history beginning some 3000 years ago as a sym­bol of freedom from slavery. It is not a coincidence that red stock­ing caps were in fashion among yeomen during the 18th century, with Sam Adams, the historical­ minded patriot leader, reviving knowledge of the ancient red felt freedman's cap to popular­ize the Liberty Cap as a symbol of resistance to tyranny.
In what is now Turkey, there once existed the ancient nation of Phrygia. Around about 800 B.C., Pbrygia was conquered by Lydia, a country allied to the Greek cities that then dotted Asia Minor. Conquered Phry­gia then became a chief source of slaves for the city-states of Greece. Apparently a Phrygian slave normally went bare-head­ed, but when he in some way won his freedom, he w o u l d proudly don the red felt cap of his homeland to signify that he was now a free, independent Phrygian once more.
When the Greeks were in turn conquered by the Romans, the Romans, admirers of Greek cul­ture, adopted numerous Greek customs and laws. Among these was the tradition of the Phry­gian cap, which had spread be­yond the Phrygians to become the badge of liberty for freed­men of any nationality. The conical hat passed into Roman law, being made a part of the ceremony whereby a slave was granted his freedom. Called the act of manumission (from the Latin manus, "hand," and mit­tere, to let go"), when the slave knelt at the magistrate's feet, the cap on his head, he was tap­ped with a rod and declared a free man.
The story of the ancient Phry­gian cap does not end there, but in fact later became an emblem of revolt, with the slaves claim­ing their own freedom at no one's behest. Called a pileus by the Romans, the cap became a symbol that was used against the Roman Empire. During times of unrest and upheaval, armies marching on Rome would put the pile-us on the points of their spears to signify to the slaves that freedom was theirs if they would abandon their masters and join the ranks of the insurgents.

From the spear-supported pi­leus came the idea of the Liberty Pole. Preceding the Liberty Pole was the Liberty Tree, the first one being an elm planted by the Puritans of Boston in 1646. The firey Sam Adams designated it as a Liberty Tree after it had been used on August 14, 1765, by the Sons of Liberty, to hang an effigy of Lord Brute, author of the Stamp Act, and of An­drew Oliver, the royal govern­ment's Boston distributor of the hated stamps. The tree there­after became a rallying point of the Sons of Liberty until the patriots of Boston were expelled or cowed by the Redcoat garri­son after Lexington and Con­cord. Evacuating Boston under the threat of the guns placed on Dorchester Heights (where Gen­eral Howe was loathe to risk another Bunker Hill), the Brit­ish spiteful1y cut down the old liberty elm as they left.
In other towns throughout the thirteen colonies, community leaders would fly a flag, often emblazoned with the word Lib­erty or Union, usually a red flag with the Union Jack as the canton, the "Cromwell flag" from the reign of Queen Anne, from the highest tree near the village green. The patriots of Taunton, Massachusetts, who emblazoned Liberty and Union on their Cromwell flag, immor­talized it in a ballad containing the line, "The red flag of Taun­ton, that waves o're the green." In Indian-scarred Deerfield, Massachusetts, the Liberty Flag still waves (though no doubt a replica) from a flagpole, a Crom­well flag emblazoned with the legend Union.
When the Boston Port Bill was passed, whereby George III sought to force the Bostonians to recompense the East India Company for the tea dumped into the harbor during the fa­mous "Boston Tea Party," Whig communities throughout the land sprang to the aid of blockaded Boston. The people of Farm­ington, Connecticut, sent four hundred bushels of rye and In­dian corn. When the news of the Port Bill reached Farming­ton, a handbill was circulated, which read

A thousand patriots crowded around the village green and cheered lustily as a copy of the Boston Port Bill was burned. They cheered again as a 45-foot tall Liberty Pole was erected into the evening sky, a bright red pileus at its top - the Li­berty Cap.
The Farmington pole may have had a Liberty Flag attach­ed to it as well, and by 1776 such flags were being carried into battle, minus the Union Jack canton, a pine tree (in New England especially) replacing the Union Jack. This flag with the red field became known as the "Continental flag," since it came from not one state but several.
Liberty trees and Phrygian caps quickly became devices used on new-made battle flags, as evidenced by the so-called "White Plains Flag," which Hessian troops claimed they cap­tured from the Americans on August 27, 1776, during the Bat­tle of Long Island. It is called the White Plains Flag because there is some dispute as to where the patriots actually lost it, an­other view being that it was taken during the Battle of White Plains, October 28, another United States defeat in the fight for New York. The White Plains Flag is emblazoned with the words Liberty or Death over a crossed sword and staff, the staff (spear?) supporting a light blue pileus (blue, because the field is red.) The Germans who captured it themselves not long after came to grief, being taken prisoner in the Battle of Tren­ton on December 26, their com­mander, Colonel Rall, being mor­tally wounded.

Following the American Revo­lution, the famous pamphleteer Thomas Paine traveled to France. A tireless Revolution­ary and himself English-born, he also slipped into England and tried to stir up rebellion there. But he was forced to flee, escap­ing to France one step ahead of the police.
In France he was warmly welcomed, the monarchy having been overthrown there, and was made a Member of the French Assembly (alas, his welcome was not to last, and he was jailed during the Terror, narrowly avoiding the guillotine). Paine found that Sam Adam's revival of the pileus had preceded him, being adopted by the republican French as the bonnet rouge.
The unstable French Republic was followed by the Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte, who, com­bining the ideals and symbols of the Revolution with his own dictatorial authority, fashioned the French army into a con­quering power. Thus he was able to overthrow various an­cient thrones in Europe, depos­ing, among them, the Spanish King. In this manner, the Phry­gian cap returned as a symbol of liberty to the Western Hemi­sphere, for the nationalists of Latin America seized the op­portunity granted by Spain's prostration to declare indepen­dence for their own countries. Thus today we find Phrygian caps used as devices on various South and Central American national flags, which are also usually tricolors inspired by the tricolor of Revolutionary France.

Both the Liberty Cap and the Liberty Pole are featured on these Latin American banners, though the "pole" probably rep­resents the cap-hung spear of Roman times. The national en­signs of Columbia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Paraguay, and Ar­gentina's Presidential Standard all feature Liberty Caps and Liberty "Poles." It is a sad irony that some of these coun­tries are today dictatorships from which liberty hath flown, strong gun control laws being central features of the tyrannic structures of these dictatorships.
In the meanwhile, "back at the ranch," so to speak, in the United States today the Liberty Cap is not forgotten. In the Old Bay State, Massachusetts, where it all began "by the rude bridge that arched the flood," the very cradle of the Revolu­tion, the Liberty Cap is enjoying an ardent revival. Spreading throughout New England, this is due for the most part to one man, V. Leslie Hebert of Wey­mouth, Massachusetts. A life­long arborist, Mr. Hebert served as Weymouth's tree warden un­til his retirement in 1967, upon which he began his career as New England's only professional Liberty Pole Raiser. Con­ducting a campaign to interest the public in Liberty Trees and Boston's Liberty Tree in parti­cular, Mr. Hebert in 1964 suc­ceeded in inducing Governor Endicott Peabody to sign a Pro­clamation making August 14 the Commonwealth's Liberty Tree Day.
With the arrival of the Bi­centennial, an increasing num­ber of towns are organizing An­nual Liberty Pole Days replete with ceremony and celebration. When he participates in these ceremonies, Mr. Hebert, attired in 18th century regalia, is the Grand Marshal of the event, leading a procession of costumed Liberty Boys and patriotic lad­ies to the town common. Fol­lowing the Grand Marshal is a lady carrying a small black cof­fin labeled Liberty, followed in turn by men trundling the Li­berty Pole, its butt end laid in a special two-wheeled cart.
When the Liberty Pole arrives at the green, fifers, and drum­mers playing a lively tune, the music stops and the ceremony begins. The coffin is placed on the grass and a handful of dirt is thrown on it to symbolically "bury" it. "Liberty is dead, Liberty is dead!" goes up the cry.
Then, in defiance of tyranny, staunch Minutemen raise the Liberty Pole and fix it in place. A dollar has been fixed to the top of the pole and this will be the reward for any robust youth who can shinny up to the top to place the Liberty Cap there. However, before this can be done, a detachment of redcoats appears. They advance on the "rebellious" pole with the intent of cutting it down. "Violence" breaks out as the Liberty Boys defend the pole, bayonets and musket butts being pitted against wooden clubs. But the patriots prove too numerous for the Lobsterbacks, and they with­draw to the cheers and catcall­ing of the crowd.

The ceremony resumes, with numerous boys trying and failing to shinny up the pole, until one finally succeeds amid the ap­plause and huzzaing of the throng. Mr. Hebert makes a short oration, a Minuteman de­tachment fires a musket volley, the band strikes up, and the ceremony is over.
Says Mr. Hebert ( Yankee magazine, October 1975)

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