The rebel yell and northern cheer
Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 3:23 pmFor many years I have observed on the shelves the well-known bourbon called Rebel Yell. I buy it once in a while, finding it rather thin and inoffensive, not as good as in the 70's when it was made by S-W. I always wondered what the term referred to. I just assumed it was a southern term used to indicate regional pride. There is also the well-known rock song of the same name but I never really understood the lyrics or gave them much account.
Anyway the other day when checking something about S-W that brand was mentioned so just for the heck of it I googled the name. Some old 1800's references came up stating that this was a battle cry of Confederate soldiers, which I never knew. Not just that, but there was a kind of Union equivalent, called the northern cheer. One source claimed the rebel yell was a high-pitched elongated vocalization of the "hur" part of "hurrah" which had not just Anglo-Saxon origins but even older. The same source said the northern cheer was a shout that stressed more the second syllable of hurrah, the rah, which had a deep booming sound, and that often massed troops hurled out the yell and cheer at each other. Further googling produced early 1900's films with sound on youtube that showed very aged Confederate veterans performing their yell en masse for the camera. It was not a little unsettling to hear this, there was something old-fashioned and rather primal about it. I didn't look for clips of Union vets doing their cheer but maybe there is film of that too.
It is really wonderful how the Internet enables growth of personal knowledge, just through this means alone you can check a thousand and million things which in the old days could never have been known by the average person. To me Rebel Yell was just a brand of bourbon but I see now what the term originally meant and how it was used in times past.
Gary
Anyway the other day when checking something about S-W that brand was mentioned so just for the heck of it I googled the name. Some old 1800's references came up stating that this was a battle cry of Confederate soldiers, which I never knew. Not just that, but there was a kind of Union equivalent, called the northern cheer. One source claimed the rebel yell was a high-pitched elongated vocalization of the "hur" part of "hurrah" which had not just Anglo-Saxon origins but even older. The same source said the northern cheer was a shout that stressed more the second syllable of hurrah, the rah, which had a deep booming sound, and that often massed troops hurled out the yell and cheer at each other. Further googling produced early 1900's films with sound on youtube that showed very aged Confederate veterans performing their yell en masse for the camera. It was not a little unsettling to hear this, there was something old-fashioned and rather primal about it. I didn't look for clips of Union vets doing their cheer but maybe there is film of that too.
It is really wonderful how the Internet enables growth of personal knowledge, just through this means alone you can check a thousand and million things which in the old days could never have been known by the average person. To me Rebel Yell was just a brand of bourbon but I see now what the term originally meant and how it was used in times past.
Gary
