Post by IRONCLAD on Mar 10, 2004 20:37:07 GMT -5
THE REBEL YELL
The sweetest sound or the ugliest Noise?
Confederate soldier-poet Sidney Lanier described the Rebel Yell as “a single long cry, as from the leader of a pack of hounds who has found the game. . . a dry harsh quality that conveys an uncompromising hostility. . . the irresistible outflow of some fierce soul immeasurably enraged, tinged with a jubilant tone, as if in anticipation of a speedy triumph and a satisfying revenge. . . a howl, a hoarse battle-cry, a cheer, and a congratulation, all in one.” Union soldier-author Ambrose Bierce said, “It was the ugliest sound that any mortal ever heard.” Anyone who ever heard it never forgot it, but no one has heard it since 1865 so no one today truly knows what the Yell sounds like. “A mingling of Indian whoop and wolf-howl” is one of the many ways veterans have described it. Phonetic attempts at pronunciation have given it various sound, including a “yip-yip-yip” sound and a “woh-who-ey” sound. Northern soldiers remembered it as eerie and blood curdling, and as a shriek, a “wildcat screech,” or a “banshee squall.” “There is nothing like it on this side of the infernal region,” remembered one. “The peculiar corkscrew sensation that it sends down your backbone under these circumstances can never be told.”
To Gen. Stonewall Jackson the Rebel Yell was “the sweetest music I ever heard,” and to the soldiers in the Confederate armies it was much more than a battle-cry. It was “a maniacal maelstrom of sound; that penetrating, rasping, shrieking, bloodcurdling noise that could be heard for miles on earth and whose volumes reached the heavens.” Like the roar of a great beast, it foretold the fierce power of a Southern army on the attack.
But the “awe-inspiring sound” could also unite the men in a strangely patriotic way, as the Yell began at one end of a Southern army and swept in great loud waves up and down the line. Remembered one participant, “The effect was beyond expression. It seemed to fill every heart with new life, to inspire every nerve with might never known before.” -
Fascinating Fact: The demonic, fiendish Rebel Yell, one Union soldier said, was “a yell the devil ought to copyright.” An old Confederate veteran, when asked to duplicate it, said the true Yell could be sounded only at a dead run during the excitement of battle.
Written by Stephen T. Foster
The sweetest sound or the ugliest Noise?
Confederate soldier-poet Sidney Lanier described the Rebel Yell as “a single long cry, as from the leader of a pack of hounds who has found the game. . . a dry harsh quality that conveys an uncompromising hostility. . . the irresistible outflow of some fierce soul immeasurably enraged, tinged with a jubilant tone, as if in anticipation of a speedy triumph and a satisfying revenge. . . a howl, a hoarse battle-cry, a cheer, and a congratulation, all in one.” Union soldier-author Ambrose Bierce said, “It was the ugliest sound that any mortal ever heard.” Anyone who ever heard it never forgot it, but no one has heard it since 1865 so no one today truly knows what the Yell sounds like. “A mingling of Indian whoop and wolf-howl” is one of the many ways veterans have described it. Phonetic attempts at pronunciation have given it various sound, including a “yip-yip-yip” sound and a “woh-who-ey” sound. Northern soldiers remembered it as eerie and blood curdling, and as a shriek, a “wildcat screech,” or a “banshee squall.” “There is nothing like it on this side of the infernal region,” remembered one. “The peculiar corkscrew sensation that it sends down your backbone under these circumstances can never be told.”
To Gen. Stonewall Jackson the Rebel Yell was “the sweetest music I ever heard,” and to the soldiers in the Confederate armies it was much more than a battle-cry. It was “a maniacal maelstrom of sound; that penetrating, rasping, shrieking, bloodcurdling noise that could be heard for miles on earth and whose volumes reached the heavens.” Like the roar of a great beast, it foretold the fierce power of a Southern army on the attack.
But the “awe-inspiring sound” could also unite the men in a strangely patriotic way, as the Yell began at one end of a Southern army and swept in great loud waves up and down the line. Remembered one participant, “The effect was beyond expression. It seemed to fill every heart with new life, to inspire every nerve with might never known before.” -
Fascinating Fact: The demonic, fiendish Rebel Yell, one Union soldier said, was “a yell the devil ought to copyright.” An old Confederate veteran, when asked to duplicate it, said the true Yell could be sounded only at a dead run during the excitement of battle.
Written by Stephen T. Foster
