As an antipodean afficionado of the civil war I have always found
Shelby Foote's superb triptych an unbeatable source. A quote from
Volume 3 paints a vivid image:
'Time played its tricks, distorting and subtracting. The rebel yell,
for instance - "shrill, exultant, savage," a one-time blue infantryman
re-called, "so different from the deep, manly, generous shout of the
Union soldiers" - would presently be lost to all who had never heard
it on the field of battle. Asked at the close of a U.D.C. banquet to
reproduce it, a Tennessee veteran explained that the yell was
"impossible unless made at a dead run in full charge against the
enemy." Not only could it not be given in cold blood while standing
still; it was "worse than folly to try to imitate it with a stomach
full of food and a mouth full of false teeth." So it perished from the
sound waves. Wildcat screech, foxhunt yip, banshee squall, whatever it
had been, it survived only in the fading memories and sometimes vivid
dreams of old men sunning themselves on public benches, grouped
together in resentment of the boredom they encountered when they spoke
of the war to those who had not shared it with them.'
Shelby Foote "The Civil War" Volume 3 |
