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The Rebel Yell
A Cultural History
By Craig A. Warren The University of Alabama Press
Copyright © 2014 The University of Alabama Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8173-8780-8
CHAPTER 1
"A Very Peculiar Sound"
1861–1865
White southerners greeted secession, in 1861, with a mixture of regret, disquiet, pride, and unbridled enthusiasm. Over time, most came to recognize the value in building a distinct national identity for the young Southern Confederacy. By doing so, Confederates could boost morale, find common ground, and articulate shared values and objectives. Just as important, they could show the Confederacy to be culturally and politically independent from the United States. Southern symbols became an essential part of the mission to establish national unity and independence. From the design of a new national flag to the writing of patriotic poetry, many citizens responded to the general hunger for Confederate emblems. The press encouraged such behavior, as when a Richmond magazine argued that new monuments—from statuary to songs—would arouse "a new and holier love and zeal for the welfare and happiness of [our] country."
But as historians have pointed out, the Confederacy faced symbolic challenges from the very beginning. White southerners shared cultural, political, religious, and familial roots with their northern counterparts, and such connections went deep. Many Confederates celebrated George Washington and the Founding Fathers as their ancestors and heroes. Yet northerners could do the same. That shared history likewise clouded the Confederacy's efforts to develop its national flag. As Paul Quigley has noted, "there were calls for the South to retain the stars and stripes, or something very close to it," reflecting a widespread feeling that the U.S. flag "belonged as much to the South as it did to the North." Eventually the Confederacy developed three different national banners. But like the American flag, each employed red, white, and blue and used stars to represent states. Less formal symbols of Confederate identity likewise blurred with Yankee culture, as found in popular songs and sheet music. "Some songs circulating in the Confederacy came straight from northern pens," another historian observed, while "others simply had had their lyrics adapted to southern climes." Southern purists may have objected to the use of these works, but they failed to persuade neighbors to shed southern versions of songs like "Who Will Care for Mother, Now." Even that beloved Confederate anthem, "Dixie," had been written by a northerner. So while "southerners clearly felt the need to create symbols of national identity," they struggled to find symbols that at once stood apart from northern culture and appealed to most Confederates.
The Rebel yell proved to be an exception. The battle cry erupted organically from the throats of Confederate troops in 1861, an unnerving and uneven scream with no known lineage connecting it to the northern populace. It had no physical shape whatsoever and made no use of words, cadence, or melody. These qualities freed the yell from the problems hampering the nation's visible emblems and familiar anthems, many of which derived from European or northern precursors. What is more, in a Confederacy "whose only experience was one of war," and indeed "had no existence apart from war," the martial qualities of the Rebel yell appealed to the citizenry's sense of self. While Confederates developed more formal and standard markers of southern nationhood through 1865, they never found a more unique, naked symbol of Confederate unity and defiance. Far more than most Confederates realized during the war years, the scream made for a potent symbol of an independent southern nation.
It would be impossible to name the precise moment when the Rebel yell first rang out, but it almost certainly occurred outside of battle. The Irish-born journalist William Howard Russell crafted what may be the earliest account of the screech on record, published in the London Times on July 10, 1861. Russell was a groundbreaking war correspondent whose reporting on the Crimean War earned him acclaim in Britain. When he toured the South during the opening phases of the Civil War, he found little to admire about the military bearing of Confederate troops. Although he admitted that "the Tennessee and Mississippi infantry were generally the materials of good soldiers," the journalist found a widespread lack of order, discipline, and training among the southerners he encountered in camp. The sentries behaved nothing like proper soldiers: he observed that some "carried their firelocks under their arms like umbrellas, others by the muzzle with the butt over the shoulder; one, for ease, had stuck his, with the bayonet in the ground, upright before him; others laid their arms against the trees, and preferred a sitting to an upright posture."
It was with this same good-natured mockery that Russell described the collective yelling of southern troops. The foreigner noted the laziness of Confederate soldiers stationed near the Mississippi River about sixty miles from Memphis, Tennessee. Weary of the labor required to construct fortifications above the river, the soldiers let out a cheer when their commander announced that slaves would soon take over the task of digging entrenchments. "'Three cheers for General Pillow' were called for," Russell recorded, "and were responded to by the whooping and screeching sounds that pass muster in this part of the world for cheers." Writing this passage in June 1861, Russell did not ascribe the "whooping and screeching" to southern soldiers in particular but rather to regional custom. Indeed, the cheers struck him as being as unmilitary in nature as the other practices he saw, such as soldiers wearing civilian clothing and greeting their general with open indifference.
Two years later, Russell published a revised account in which he militarized the screech. "What they may do in the North I know not," he wrote in My Diary North and South (1863), "but certainly the Southern soldiers cannot cheer, and what passes muster for that jubilant sound is a shrill ringing scream with a touch of the Indian war-whoop in it." Beyond narrowing his remarks to soldiers alone, Russell's revised account did more to associate the screech with the "Indian war-whoop" than did the earlier London Times piece. Russell also transformed his 1861 description of diverse "sounds," in the plural, to that of a "ringing scream" in the singular. These changes may seem slight, and we cannot know the degree to which Russell made them with care. But in light of later representations of the Rebel yell, it is worth noting that by 1863 Russell had already helped establish three ideas that would reappear time and again in commentary about the screech: (1) its use by soldiers rather than civilians; (2) its connection to the war cries of Native Americans; and (3) the concept of one distinct scream rather than a cacophony of diverse sounds. The fact that none of these ideas emerges clearly from Russell's first account demonstrates the difficulty in relying on written records to document an aural phenomenon.
At the time of the war's centennial, the lexicographer Allen Walker Read searched for the earliest published references to the Rebel yell. He found that observers from England, like Russell, provided many of the best wartime accounts. The British military observer Lt. Col. A. J. L. Fremantle made his contribution to the subject when recounting his experiences at the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. A guest of the Army of Northern Virginia at the time, Fremantle later published his recollections in the celebrated memoir Three Months in the Southern States (1863). The British officer explained that southern troops let loose with their characteristic yell when in high spirits. But unlike Russell, Fremantle portrayed the yell as a feature of the battlefield—the arena that would become most commonly associated with the sound. In fact, Read thought Fremantle may well have provided "the earliest known documentation" of the phrase "Rebel yell": "The ordnance on both sides is of a very varied description. Every now and then a caisson would blow up—if a Federal one, a Confederate yell would immediately follow. The Southern troops, when charging, or to express their delight, always yell in a manner peculiar to themselves. The Yankee cheer is much more like ours; but the Confederate officers declare that the rebel yell has a particular merit, and always produces a salutary and useful effect upon their adversaries. A corps is sometimes spoken of as a 'good yelling regiment.'" Contrary to the notion that the term "Rebel yell" was a postwar invention, this passage proved that the name "had currency even while the war was on." (Other texts, apparently unknown to Read, also demonstrated that the expression was in fairly wide circulation by 1864.) Equally important, Fremantle contrasted northern and southern cheering. Whereas Russell knew nothing of the cheers of northern soldiers, Fremantle explained that the Union troops cheered not unlike the British. The foreign officer also acknowledged other qualities of the Rebel yell as used in combat. First, he noted that southern troops emitted the scream from stationary positions when celebrating an observed advantage on the field, such as the destruction of a Federal caisson. Second, Confederates also yelled while charging enemy positions. Here Fremantle emphasized a major idea that did not come across in Russell's reporting: the Rebel yell could be frightening to the enemy. In fact, Fremantle may have been the first writer to assert that Confederate officers valued the scream as a tool for demoralizing northern troops. His statement suggests that the practice was well-established in the Army of Northern Virginia by the summer of 1863. This portrait in turn gives credence to postwar accounts of southern officers sometimes ordering troops to deliver the Rebel yell.
A third memoir by a British observer, an Englishwoman named Catherine C. Hopley, described yet another staple of the Rebel yell tradition. Hopley drew on witness accounts when describing the panicked flight of northern troops at the Battle of First Manassas in July 1861. "There have been various attempts to account for that panic," she explained, "but the most prevalent idea is, that it was caused by a shout of triumph at the capture of Sherman's battery.... More than one person described that shout as something more overpowering than the cannon's roar. It was taken up, and carried along the line for several miles, and they heard the uproar rolling along in its approach like an avalanche of thunder. The enemy were not aware of the cause, and were in their turn overpowered by terror. One frightened company infected the rest, and the result is known." Hopley's Life in the South (1863) captured an effect described by many veterans in postwar remembrances: a rolling wave of sound that carried from one end of the Confederate line to the other. One might draw an analogy between this sonic effect and the physical and visual "wave" witnessed at modern sports arenas, produced when fans of each section stand and sit in sequence. Her memoir also united two elements discussed by Fremantle: that Confederates voiced the Rebel yell to celebrate gains on the battlefield and that it struck fear into the hearts of their enemies. The latter point received the greater emphasis. To be sure, the Englishwoman suggested that the terrifying screech itself—more than Confederate arms—deserved credit for securing victory at Manassas.
Rounding out the observations by Englishmen, FitzGerald Ross remarked on the Rebel yell in a memoir of his tour of the Confederacy. Ross, who served as an officer in the Austrian Hussars, first published his observations in an 1864 article; a slightly revised account appeared in his 1865 book, A Visit to the Cities and Camps of the Confederate States. Ross recalled that when southern troops entered Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, during the Gettysburg campaign, they emitted the Rebel yell: "There is a fine wooden statue of [Benjamin] Franklin, boldly perched on the top of the county court-house, and painted to resemble marble. I am sorry to say that this great man excited the derision of the passing soldiers, who saluted him with that 'terrible scream and barbarous howling,' a real Southern yell, which rang along the whole line. I heard it that day for the first time. It was a very peculiar sound. By practice, many have arrived at a high pitch of perfection, and can yell loud enough to be heard a mile off. They learnt it from the Indians, I believe." Ross's account, though brief, hit on several qualities of the screech. He noted its shrill sound and ability to carry great distances. The Hussar also implied that the yell was the result of practice and precise delivery—an idea that would intrigue scholars and history enthusiasts long after the war. While the passage supported Russell's claim that the yell thrived off the battlefield as well as in combat, Ross heard the screech used to express disdain rather than happiness. Apparently the Rebel yell could express a range of sentiments, provided that strong emotions were involved. Finally, the officer made two more observations about the scream: that it sounded animalistic and that it imitated Native American war whoops. Russell believed the Rebel yell contained "a touch" of the Indian yell, but Ross thought it was learned wholesale from Native Americans. By 1864, the war-whoop theory of the yell's origins had taken root.
Northern sources from the war years also documented a memorable battle cry voiced by Confederate troops. A sampling of such texts demonstrates how northerners reacted to the Rebel yell and how they could represent it differently than did Russell, Fremantle, Hopley, and Ross. Writing to his father on September 7, 1862, a soldier of the 3rd New York described his first combat experience in Washington, North Carolina. "They attacked with tremendous yells lasting throughout the battle," he reported, "and were met by us in silence with English coolness and defeated with English vigour." The account confirmed Fremantle's view that the Confederates sounded far different in battle than did northern troops. And by using the word "English" as an adjective to describe the Yankees' behavior, he supported the idea that northerners—at least superficially—had more in common with the British than with their Confederate counterparts. Notably, the novice soldier did not acknowledge that the Rebel yell unnerved him or his comrades. Either he wrote the truth as he saw it, or he meant to impress his father by disguising his own fears and anxieties.
Items published in the United States Service Magazine in 1864 and 1865 also referred to the Rebel yell. The short story "Love and Loyalty," by Louisa May Alcott, appeared there in serial form between July and December 1864. In the August 1864 installment, Alcott delivered one of the first references to the screech ever to appear in a work of fiction. The yell arose during a scene portraying two Union soldiers in the thick of combat, one carrying the U.S. flag:
"You're wounded, Rob! For God's sake fall back." But, with a grim smile, Robert passed the banner into the keeping of his other hand, saying, as his arm dropped useless at his side,—
"Not yet. Clear away for me, Rick, and let the old flag be the first up."
A loyal cheer from behind drowned the rebel yell that rose in front, as a blue wave rolled up and broke over the wall, carrying the brothers with it.
As in virtually all northern references penned during wartime, here the Rebel yell is easily overpowered by Yankee vocal chords. After the war, with the outcome of the conflict no longer in doubt, northern veterans could be far more forthcoming about the strength and effect of the enemy's battle cry.
Several months later, in January 1865, the United States Service Magazine published a nonfiction piece titled "Notes on the May Campaign on the James River." With an ear attentive to noises human and otherwise, the northern author recalled a Confederate assault against positions to his front and flank: "The shrill steam-whistle was heard at intervals—a rebel ruse to make us believe their troops were arriving from the South—then about midnight a rifle-shot or two, and then a volley rang out into the clear air, followed by the dog-like rebel yell, and answered by the full-toned Union shout, pealing in our ears." Like Alcott, the writer emphasized the difference between northern and Confederate battle cries. The pro-Union bias shines through the account, insofar as the "full-toned" cries of the Union troops contrast favorably to the "dog-like" Rebel yell. Yet even if the author meant to denigrate southern yelling as animalistic, his choice of words cannot be dismissed out of hand. Later narratives, including those by southerners, would sometimes stress the relationship between the Rebel yell and the sounds of hunting dogs.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Rebel Yell by Craig A. Warren. Copyright © 2014 The University of Alabama Press. Excerpted by permission of The University of Alabama Press.
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