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| Alabama artist Roberta Wesley hoped to capture the intensity of the legendary Confederate battle cry in her painting "Rebel Yell." (Courtesy of Roberta Wesley) |
Historian Seeks to Re-create Legendary Rebel Yell
BY DRU SEFTON
Posted on 07/01/2005 8:55:40 AM PDT by Incorrigible
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Historian Seeks to Re-create Legendary Rebel YellBY DRU SEFTON |
The rebel yell, a legend of the Confederacy, endures today in racehorse names, song titles and Rebel Yell Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.
But actual recordings of the piercing battle cry, which terrified countless Union troops during the Civil War, are extremely rare.
Now a Civil War historian working with a sound engineer has multiplied a yell to re-create the hideous cacophony Union soldiers faced in battles such as Gettysburg, which marks its 142nd anniversary July 1-3.
"I'd always been curious about the yell: Was it fiendish or frightening?" said Don Bracken of Palisades, N.Y., author of "Times of the Civil War."
When he first heard the resulting recording, "I realized it was more like being overwhelmed. It created a feeling of helplessness."
Bracken became interested in using technology to preserve disappearing aspects of the Civil War while researching his book, which examines war coverage in The New York Times and The Charleston Mercury newspapers.
He happened across one of the few known recordings of a living Civil War veteran -- albeit an aging one -- giving a rebel yell. It was captured in 1935 at radio station WBT in Charlotte, N.C.
The veteran, then 92, was identified as Pvt. Thomas N. Alexander of the 37th North Carolina Regiment. He gave the same holler as he did "back at the battle of Gaines Mill (near Richmond, Va.) when he was probably 20 or so," Bracken said.
Bracken worked with an engineer to digitally multiply, magnify and stagger that yell, creating the auditory illusion of hundreds of rebel troops.
"I asked him to make it sound like a Confederate charge coming out of the early morning darkness," he said.
The effect was "startling," Bracken said.
But another historian doubts it's an authentic re-creation.
Gabor Boritt, founder and director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, pointed out that most soldiers were very young men. "And this cannot sound like a bunch of young guys hollering, so I'm dubious," he said.
As Bracken said, "it's an approximation."
Boritt added that there was not one rebel yell, but countless different types. "Union soldiers had yells, different units had yells."
The expression Boritt has come across "again and again" in historic accounts of the rebel yell "is they were `yelling like fiends."'
The most specific written descriptions reveal the yell began deep and ended high-pitched, in a falsetto, Boritt said.
It's been variously reported as sounding like the howl of a wildcat or the shrill bark of a fox, a rhythmic, throbbing, eerie death cry.
Many accounts come from letters of the period. Col. Keller Anderson of Kentucky's Orphan Brigade described the yell during the men's charge at Chickamauga: "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 on Earth, and whose volume reached the heavens -- such an expression has never yet come from the throats of sane men, but from men whom the seething blast of an imaginary hell would not check while the sound lasted."
And this, from Alexander Hunter of Gen. James Longstreet's staff: "When our reserve, led by Hood's Texas Brigade, the pride and glory of the Army of Northern Virginia, came on a run, gathering up all the fragments of other commands in their front, and this second line clashed straight at the enemy, then I heard the rebel yell with all its appalling significance. I never in my life heard such a fearsome, awful sound. ... I have often dreamed of it; above the uproar of a great battle it dominated. On those charging columns of blue it had a decided effect, for it portended capture, mutilation or death and brought eternity very near."
The yell is confusing to research, said Waite Rawls, executive director of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, "because most memoirs show a large disparity between people who heard it and people who gave it."
Many veterans, Rawls said, "talked about it being a yipping or foxhunt sound. It's hard to do if you're not running. Part of it is what's going on in your chest cavity as your feet hit the ground."
Civil War re-enactor Monte Akers said it's a challenge to reproduce.
"It's one of those minor mysteries," said Akers, an attorney in Austin, Texas, who has appeared as an extra in films including "Gettysburg." "There are accounts by soldiers on both sides. Yet nobody can with absolute confidence replicate it."
Akers managed to get an entire regiment of Civil War buffs into a rebel yell in 1988 during a 125th anniversary re-enactment of the Battle of Chickamauga in Georgia.
"It sounded pretty good, but didn't have as much of the pure terror and adrenaline that you'd need. When you're about to kill or be killed, you'd probably tend to scream louder."
Artist Roberta Wesley of Madison, Ala., was inspired by that terror for her painting "Rebel Yell," a tribute to her great-grandfather Littleton Berry Hooten, who enlisted in the Confederate infantry at Montgomery, Ala.
"Just imagining the music and the yells to get these people into battle, the insanity of it all," Wesley said. "The yell created the feeling of whatever makes you get up and do battle."
Bracken said he plans to make his new recording available for free downloading at his Web site, http://historyscope.com, early in July. The original WBT recording of Pvt. Alexander's rebel yell can be heard at http://www.26nc.org/History/RebelYell/RebelYell_l.wav.
July 1, 2005
(Dru Sefton can be contacted at dru.sefton@newhouse.com.)
Not for commercial use. For education and discussion purposes only.
That recording wouldn't scare off this Yankee!
Just like yesterday (Pressed by a New Invasion of Yankees, Schools of the New South Resegregate), there are some articles that demand to be posted!
That was for you!
When you're done learning pop songs sung in Latin, ping your friends!
> That recording wouldn't scare off this Yankee!
Sounds like a schnauzer with it's foot caught in a lawnmower.
Hmmm.
Actually, not a bad analogy for the results of an agrarian country losing to its industrial neighbor...
Bump!
sounds more like a seminole band overrunning the settlement... maybe that's where they got it..
BTW, I read a contemporary account of a Union soldier who contrasted the "high-pitched" yell of the Confederates with the "low manly" battle cry of the northern troops. I dunno, maybe they were just muttering "Oh sh!t" as they saw the approaching rebels.
I'm currently reading the diary of Pennsylvania Sergeant Samuel Clear. He calls the Rebel Yell "their high, womanish scream"!
An interesting article.
That was a great song, that whole album was great.
Legend has it the Rebel Yell was started by the boys from Giles County (home for me).
To recreate the rebel yell, put 100 Democrats in a room and tell them that Bush is going to select the next 3 Supreme Court nominees.
That would be a whine, not a yell.
A yell would be the same situation, only with 100 Republicans. :-)
Ken Burns' CW series has a film from the 75th Gettysburg reunion. Union and Confederate veterans shake hands and some of the Southerners let loose with what they say was the rebel yell. The ages of the guys at this thing (almost 2,000 attended) ranged from 86 to 112.
I've always wondered what it may have sounded like...from reading the article, though, I have the feeling that it varied pretty widely from unit to unit and various parts of the South.
Although cheap, I found it to be pretty good sourmash whiskey.
No, most Southern boys ran hounds. Did you ever run critters with a good pack? Not follow on a horse, but run with them? The sound could make a city boy just faint away. It was effective in the same way bagpipes are.
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