Rebel Yell

The rebel yell was a battle cry used by Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. Confederate soldiers used the yell during charges to intimidate the enemy and boost their own morale, although the yell had many other uses. No audio recordings of the yell exist from the Civil War era, but there are audio clips and film footage of veterans performing the yell many years later at Civil War veterans' reunions. The origin of the yell is uncertain, though it is thought to have been influenced either by Native American war cries or a Scottish war cry tradition.

Units were nicknamed for their apparent ability to yell during battle. The 35th Battalion of Virginia Cavalry, "White's Cavalry", were given the nom de guerre of "Comanches" for the way they sounded during battle.

The sound of the yell has been the subject of much discussion. 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. The rebel yell has also been likened to the scream of a cougar. In media such as movies or video games, the yell is often portrayed as a simple "yee-haw" and in some parts of the United States, "yee-ha". The yell has also been described as similar to Native American cries. John Salmon Ford, in an 1896 interview with Frederic Remington, describes a charge his Texas Rangers made into a Comanche village in 1858 and that his troops gave the "Texas Yell". One description says it was a cross between an "Indian whoop and wolf-howl".

Several recordings of Civil War veterans performing the yell 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." The Library of Congress has a film from the 1930s of a dozen or so veterans performing the yell individually and as a group. In 1935, a North Carolina veteran aged 90 performed it and was recorded.

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