Rebel yell

In media such as movies or video games, the yell is often portrayed as a simple "yee-haw" and in some parts of the United States, "yee-ha".

However, in the documentary film Reconvergence, historian Waite Rawls, the head of the Museum of the Confederacy, describes his long odyssey to recover recordings of the yell.

The film version, by contrast, has the yell sounding as a high-pitched "yay-hoo" repeated several times in rapid succession.

In Ken Burns's documentary The Civil War, Shelby Foote notes that historians are not quite sure how the yell sounded, being described as "a foxhunt yip mixed up with sort of a banshee squall".

In his autobiography My Own Story, Bernard Baruch recalls how his father, a former surgeon in the Confederate army, would at the sound of the song "Dixie" jump up and give the rebel yell, no matter where he was: "As soon as the tune started Mother knew what was coming and so did we boys.

I have seen Father, ordinarily a model of reserve and dignity, leap up in the Metropolitan Opera House and let loose that piercing yell."

Jubal Early once told some troops who hesitated to charge because they were out of ammunition: Damn it, holler them across.The origin of the cry is uncertain.

It is described by Craig A. Warren as "essentially a Celtic war cry, with a strong mix of Arabian ululation, and perhaps, a bit of Native American 'yip-yip-yip' at the very beginning".

At the Battle of Killiecrankie "Dundee and the Chiefs chose to employ perhaps the most effective pre-battle weapon in the traditional (highland) arsenal – the eerie and disconcerting howl,"[8] also "The terror was heightened by their wild plaided appearance and the distinctive war-cry of the Gael – a high, savage whooping sound ..."[9] According to Tunisian academic historian Abdeljelil Temimi, the Arabian ululation was brought to North America by the Moriscos, where it combined with the Celtic war cry brought by settlers from Ireland, the Scottish Highlands, Brittany and northwest Spain.

Sidney Lanier, the poet and Confederate veteran, described his unit's yell as "a single long cry as from the leader of a pack of hounds.

"I could hear the sound of shots from the direction of Hickory Point, accompanied at intervals by fierce yells," remembered Reeder.

Then arose that do-or-die expression, that maniacal maelstrom of sound; that penetrating, rasping, shrieking, blood-curdling 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.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.In an instant every voice with one accord vigorously shouted the 'Rebel yell,' which was so often heard on the field of battle.

It was the ugliest sound that any mortal ever heard – even a mortal exhausted and unnerved by two days of hard fighting, without sleep, without rest, without food and without hope ......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.