The rebel yell was a battle cry used by Confederate soldiers 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 many other uses. While no audio recordings of the yell exist from the Civil War era, there are both audio clips and film footage of veterans doing the yell many years after the war. 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.
Read more about Rebel Yell: Sound, Origins, Contemporaneous Accounts, In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words rebel and/or yell:
“It was evident that, both on account of the feudal system and the aristocratic government, a private man was not worth so much in Canada as in the United States; and, if your wealth in any measure consists in manliness, in originality and independence, you had better stay here. How could a peaceable, freethinking man live neighbor to the Forty-ninth Regiment? A New-Englander would naturally be a bad citizen, probably a rebel, there,—certainly if he were already a rebel at home.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is restful, tragedy, because one knows that there is no more lousy hope left. You know you’re caught, caught at last like a rat with all the world on its back. And the only thing left to do is shout—not moan, or complain, but yell out at the top of your voice whatever it was you had to say. What you’ve never said before. What perhaps you don’t even know till now.”
—Jean Anouilh (1910–1987)