Rebel Yell

Confederate soldiers used the rebel yell as a battle cry during the American Civil War. Confederate soldiers would use the yell during charges to intimidate the enemy and boost their own morale, although the yell had other uses. The exact sound of the yell is unknown and the subject of much speculation and debate. Likewise, the origin of the yell is uncertain.

Contemporary Accounts

?Then arose that do-or-die expression, that maniacal maelstrom of sound; that penetrating, rasping, shrieking, blood-curling noise that could be heard for miles and whose volume reached the heavens--such an expression as never yet came from the throats of sane men, but from men whom the seething blast of an imaginary hell would not check while the sound lasted.? -Colonel Keller Anderson of Kentucky's Orphan Brigade

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"It paragons description, that yell! How it starts deep and ends high, how it rises into three increasing crescendos and breaks with a command of battle."-a New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter

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?In an instant every voice with one accord vigorously shouted the ?Rebel yell,? which was so often heard on the field of battle. ?Woh-who-ey! who-ey! who-ey! Woh-who-ey! who-ey!? etc. (The best illustration of this "true yell" which can be given the reader is by spelling it as above, with directions to sound the first syllable ?who? short and low, and the second "who" with a very high and prolonged note deflecting upon the third syllable "ey.")?- Colonel Harvey Dew of the 9th Virginia Cavalry, in Century Illustrated Magazine (1892)

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