The authentic Rebel Yell?

With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War under way, here are a couple of recordings that I found that are historically interesting, at least to Southerners. The subject is the fabled "rebel yell," the legendary war cry of Confederate soldiers as they began battle. Wikipedia's piece is very good.

One of the earliest accounts of use of the yell comes from the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run) during then Brig. General Thomas Jonathan Stonewall Jackson's assault at Henry House Hill. An order was given during a bayonet charge to "yell like furies", which was instrumental in routing the Federal forces under General Irvin McDowell back to Washington D.C.

“Then arose that do-or-die expression, that maniacal maelstrom of sound; that penetrating, rasping, shrieking, blood-curdling noise that could be heard for miles and whose volume reached the heavens–such an expression as never yet came from the throats of sane men, but from men whom the seething blast of an imaginary hell would not check while the sound lasted.” -Colonel Keller Anderson of Kentucky's Orphan Brigade

"It paragons description, that yell! How it starts deep and ends high, how it rises into three increasing crescendos and breaks with a command of battle."-a New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter

The origin of the yell remains unknown. Some historians think it took after Indian war cries while others say it was of Celtic or Scottish highland heritage.

But what did it actually sound like? Wikipedia recounts,

“In an instant every voice with one accord vigorously shouted the ‘Rebel yell,’ which was so often heard on the field of battle. ‘Woh-who-ey! who-ey! who-ey! Woh-who-ey! who-ey!’ etc. (The best illustration of this "true yell" which can be given the reader is by spelling it as above, with directions to sound the first syllable ‘who’ short and low, and the second "who" with a very high and prolonged note deflecting upon the third syllable "ey.")”- Colonel Harvey Dew of the 9th Virginia Cavalry, in Century Illustrated Magazine (1892)

However, there are two credible audio recordings of the Rebel Yell made decades after the war. One was made in 1938 at the 75th anniversary commemoration of the Battle of Gettysburg. In newsreel footage taken of former Confederate and Union veterans of the battle shaking hands across a rock wall at a battle site known as The Angle, someone let out a whoop or two. The veteran standing nearest the camera turns and says, "That's the rebel yell."



Segtours comments,

Although weakly belted out here by a man near the age of 100, one can still imagine the fear that it must have struck into the northern army when they were being charged by hundreds of young men yelling it at once.

Or thousands! Speaking of a whole formation of Johnny Rebs yelling all at once, is it possible to recapture what that might have sounded like? There is another recording, purportedly of an elderly Confederate veteran giving the rebel yell. His name was Thomas Alexander of the 35th North Carolina Regiment, who made the recording in 1935 for a radio station at a regimental reunion. Here is the recording, followed by a contemporary digital special-effects simulation of Alexander's yell emulating that of a whole infantry company.



The largest Civil War veterans reunion ever held was at Gettysburg on the battle's 50th anniversary in 1913. More than 50,000 Civil War veterans of both armies attended, though not all had fought at Gettysburg, of course.

One story of the 1913 reunion I read said that when thousands of the Southern veterans lined up before Cemetery Ridge and together wailed out the rebel yell, a loud moan of despair arose from the Union veterans on the ridge. PTSD?

The elderly Confederate line advanced at a walk while the Union veterans crouched behind the stone wall of The Angle and other places along the old defensive line. No one else made a sound. When the two formations were only a dozen feet apart, suddenly all semblance of old military discipline was broken and the former enemies embraced and shook hands and slapped each others' backs.

150 years ago today

The single event in American history that most affected the country's character was the Civil War. It was today that the war began when Confederate artillery began firing on Fort Sumter in the harbor approaches of Charleston, S.C.

Thousands of cannon rounds were fired to and from the fort, although the Union guns fell silent before the Confederate guns did. Finally, Fort Sumter's commander, Maj. Robert Anderson, ordered the white flag of surrender be raised. On April 14, the US flag was lowered and the fort was taken under Confederate control. The Confederate commander, Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, did not take the Union troops into captivity. Maj. Anderson and his troops were simply evacuated from the blasted fort and returned to the North. It must have been a bitter pill for Anderson to swallow to have been defeated by one of his former military students, Beauregard.

This was the least bloody battle of the rest of war, bloodless in fact, since neither side suffered a fatality during the battle. However, two Union soldiers were killed by accident during the surrender ceremony. Anderson's one condition for evacuating the fort was that his men be allowed to fire a 100-round salute to the Union. This Beauregard permitted. Union Pvt. Daniel Hough died instantly in an accidental explosion that also mortally wounded Pvt. Edward Gallway, who died in a Charleston hospital. Hough and Gallway were the first men to die in the Civil War.

The CSA occupied the fort until February 1865, then abandoned it because US Gen. William T. Sherman had seized Charleston and other US forces had taken supporting fortifications around Sumter, making its further occupation untenable. For most of the war, the US Navy had conducted extensive gunnery practice upon Fort Sumter, rendering it into rubble far more than the Confederates' bombardment had done.

The United States flag was raised again over Fort Sumter on April 14, 1865, exactly four years after it had been lowered. The officer raising the flag was Robert Anderson, then a medically-retired major general.

Fort Sumter today as seen from The Battery in Charleston.

A gun encasement inside the fort. The Union gunners tried to give as good as they got, but they were literally outgunned.  Click images for larger view. Photos by myself.

A pretty good video by the National Park Service, which owns the Sumter property today, is here.