The Rebel Yell
Fireteacher
I noted some comments and questions about the famed 'Rebel Yell' recently,
and thought a comment from a period source might prove enlightening. The
writer was responding to the request of Mrs. (Rear Admiral Raphael) Semmes
to hear "the rebel yell" at a 1891 veterans convention in Memphis:
<longish description of fight around Snodgrass Hill at Chickamauga cut.
Cpt. Anderson was with Col. John H. Kelly's 3rd Bde, Brig. Gen. William
Preston's Div., Maj. Gen. Simon B. Buckner's Corps there>
"There they go, all at breakneck speed, the bayonet at charge. The firing
appears to suddenly cease for about five seconds. 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 on
earth, and whose volumes 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.
The battle of Chickamauga is won.
Dear Southern mother, that was the Rebel yell, and only such scenes ever
did or ever will produce it.
Even when engaged, that expression from the Confederate soldier always
made my hair stand on end. The young men and youths who composed this
unearthly music were lusty, jolly, clear-voiced, hardened soldiers, full
of courage and proud to march in rags, barefoot, dirty and hungry , with
head erect to meet the plethoric ranks of the best equipped and best fed
army of modern times. Alas! now many of them are decrepit from ailment and
age, and although we will never grow old enough to cease being proud of
the record of the Confederate soldier, and the dear old mothers who bore
them, we can never again, even at your bidding, dear, dear mother, produce
the Rebel yell. Never again; never, never, never."
Captain Kellar Anderson
Co. I, 5th KY Inf Reg, 1st KY Inf Bde (the Orphan Brigade)
Quoted in "Confederate Veteran," v1 n1, pp14-15
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John McKay jmck...@atlchai.org
Social Studies Department "Be good, and you will be lonesome"
Yeshiva Atlanta High School Mark Twain, 1901