Rebel yell
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- For other uses, see Rebel yell (disambiguation).
The rebel yell (sometimes called the Pibroch of the Confederacy) was a battle cry used by Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. Confederate soldiers would use the yell during charges to intimidate the enemy and boost their own morale, although the yell had other uses. The exact sound of the yell is unknown and the subject of much speculation and debate. Likewise, the origin of the yell is uncertain.
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[edit] Uses
The yell was used as a typical battle cry during charges, but soldiers used the yell off the field of battle as well. The yell was a source of pride to the soldiers of the Confederacy. Units would compete with one another to see who could produce the best yell. During marches, one unit might begin the yell and the rest of the army column would join in, unit by unit, in a boost of morale.
The yell was so feared by the Union that a Union soldier giving the yell as a prank would be shot under the standing orders of the Union Army. [citation needed]
Units were nicknamed for their apparent ability to yell during battle. The 35th Battalion Virginia Cavalry "White's Cavalry" were given the nom de guerre of "Comanches" for they way they sound during battle.
[edit] The Sound
The sound of the yell has been the subject of much discussion and debate. Civil war soldiers, upon hearing the yell from afar, would quip that it was either “Jackson, or a rabbit,” suggesting a similarity between the sound of the yell and a rabbit’s scream. In media such as movies or video games, the yell is often portrayed as a simple “yee-haw.” The yell has also been described as similar to Native American cries. One description says it was a cross between an "Indian whoop and wolf-howl." The students at Texas A&M University have a "Whoop" yell that is based on the rebel yell.
Though hardly a definitive description, having been published some 70 years after the war ended, Margaret Mitchells classic Civil War novel Gone With The Wind has a character giving the yell sounding as a "yee-aay-eee" upon hearing the war had started. The film version, by contrast, has the yell sounding as a high pitched "yay-hoo" repeated several times in rapid succession.
Several recordings of possibly accurate yells exist. One, from a newsreel documenting the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, documents several Confederate veterans performing the yell as a high-pitched "Wa-woo-woohoo, wa-woo woohoo."
Given the differences in descriptions of the yell, there may have been several distinctive yells associated with the different regiments and their respective geographical areas.
In Ken Burns' documentary The Civil War, Shelby Foote recounts the story of an old Confederate veteran invited to speak before a ladies' society meeting. They asked him for a demonstration of the rebel yell, but he refused on the grounds that a single man could not produce the yell.
[edit] Origins
The yell has often been linked to Native American cries. Confederate soldiers may have either imitated or learned the yell from Native American groups, many of whom sided with the Confederacy. The yell has also been associated with hunting cries. Perhaps Confederate soldiers imitated the cries of their hunting dogs.
Another plausible source of the rebel yell, advanced by the historian Grady McWhiney, is that it derived from the screams traditionally made by Scottish Highlanders when making a Highland charge during battle. Also earlier documentation during the Roman conquests of Britain suggest the use of a particular yell uttered by the northern Celtic tribes of the region, in conjunction with wearing blue heather face paint and no clothing.
Considering the existence of many differing versions of the yell, it may have multiple origins.
[edit] Contemporary accounts
- One of the first accounts of the yell was given at the battle of First Manassas (Bull Run) during then Brig. General Thomas Jonathan Stonewall Jackson's assault at Henry House Hill where the order was given during a bayonet charge to "yell like furies", and 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
- “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)
- "At last it grew too dark to fight. Then away to our left and rear some of Bragg's people set up 'the rebel yell'. It was taken up successively and passed around to our front, along our right and in behind us again, until it seemed almost to have got to the point whence it started. It was the ugliest sound that any mortal ever heard -- even a mortal exhausted and unnerved by two days of hard fighting, without sleep, without rest, without food and without hope..." - Narrative of then-Lieutenant Ambrose Bierce, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, XXI Corps, Army of the Cumberland, at the Battle of Chickamauga (Last Union defenses on Horseshoe Ridge, September 20, 1863)
