From Cracked:
When you think about the Civil War, you’re probably picturing it as a slideshow of violence, racism, and terrifying tin-print photographs of severe-looking people who were apparently born without any bones in the lower half of their faces. We don’t, for instance, know what the war sounded like, since it was fought in an era when television would have been considered witchcraft. That means you’ll never know what it was like to hear the infamous Rebel Yell, the terrifying battle cry of the Confederates.
But some digging into the archives from the early days of radio and television turned up actual Civil War vets doing the cry, for old time’s sake. This site has an audio embed of an old-timer (who, again, lived to fight against Abraham Lincoln’s government) howling like a madman. Meanwhile, the Smithsonian turned up actual TV footage of a bunch of old Confederates doing the same:
Understanding that the Civil War culture was a huge part of American history,?1930s documentarians decided to gather the remaining Civil War veterans and?record some of their rituals. The Rebel Yell — the battle call of the Confederate Army –?has been described as “a sort of fox-hunt yip mixed up with a sort of banshee squall.”
As the Cracked writers said, imagine this?sound being?performed by 28,000 angry young male Southerners between the ages of 13 and 23. Agree or disagree with the Confederacy (and almost everyone reading this will disagree), this is a rich part of American heritage and it’s awesome that it was preserved. Watch the video below.
