Rebel Yell

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The Rebel Yell (such as "cry of the rebels") was a battle cry of the Confederacy during the American Civil War .

origin

It is not clear where the Rebel Yell comes from. Often it was said to have an Indian origin, because some Texan units mixed the Rebel Yell with various war calls from the Comanches .

According to another theory, it is of Celtic origin and represents a warlike reinterpretation of traditional dog and guardian calls, i.e. of oral hunting and shepherd signals. In this case, the Rebel Yell would be part of a long tradition of Celtic battle cries, which is attested back to antiquity . This assumption is all the more likely because a large part of the population of the southern states was and is of Celtic , Scottish , Irish or Welsh descent.

sound

The exact sound form of the Rebel Yell is also uncertain, but different descriptions and sound recordings exist. The latter come from, among other things, the 1938 celebrations on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg . According to one description, it sounded like a mixture between the scream of an Indian and a howling wolf. A Northern veteran described him after the war as follows: There is no other scream like this on this side of Hell. [...] It bores through your bone and bone like a corkscrew. You have to hear it to understand that. James M. McPherson describes it in his standard work on the civil war, Die für die Freiheit , as an eerily shrill scream that cuts the air.

Trivia

  • H. Allen Smith published a short humorous novel about the southern states in 1954 entitled The Rebel yell: Being a carpetbagger's̓ attempt to establish the truth concerning the screech of the Confederate soldier plus lesser matters appertaining to the peculiar habits of the South .
  • The Rebel Yell wooden racing rollercoaster in the USA was named after the Confederate Rebel Yell.
  • Rebel Yell is also the name of a bourbon whiskey , and rock singer Billy Idol's song Rebel Yell is named after the whiskey.

Recordings

literature

  • MB Darwin: A Footnote on the Rebel Yell . In: American Speech 48, 1973. pp. 303-304.
  • Andrew S. Hasselbring: The Rebel Yell . In: Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 25: 2, 1984. pp. 198-201.
  • Perry D Jamieson and Grady McWhiney: Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage . University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa AL 1981. ISBN 0817302298
  • Allen Walker Read: The Rebel Yell as a Linguistic Problem . In: American Speech 36: 2, 1961. pp. 83-92.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Rebel Yell". Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, 2002, p. 1615, edited by David Stephen Heidler, Jeanne T. Heidler, and David J. Coles
  2. ↑ Jamieson and Grady McWhiney: Attack and Die , pp. 190-191.
  3. ↑ McDonald, F., The Ethnic Factor in Alabama History: A Neglected Dimension , In: Alabama Review, 1978, 31, pp. 256-65
  4. ↑ McDonald, F., & McDonald, ES, The Ethnic Origins of the American People, 1790 , William & Mary Quarterly, 1980, 37, pp. 179-99
  5. ^ History of the Rebel Yell with sound recording
  6. ↑ Bruce Catton : Glory Road: The Bloody Route from Fredericksburg to Gettysburg , Garden City, NY, 1952, p. 57 (translation from: McPherson: Die Für die Freiheit , p. 334f)
  7. ↑ McPherson, James M. , Die for Freedom: The History of the American Civil War , Anaconda Verlag, Cologne 2008, p. 334