DURING THE CIVIL WAR, Confederate soldiers were famed for delivering a shrill and unnerving battle cry as they ran to the attack. Just what the “Rebel yell” sounded like has perplexed many historians. However, more than seventy years after the Civil War’s end, veterans at a Confederate reunion were invited to perform the yell for a radio audience. It is not necessary to have sympathy for the Confederate cause—and I don’t—in order to be mesmerized by these voices speaking to us from the dark reaches of the past. I recently spoke about the Rebel yell with Linda Wertheimer of National Public Radio.
