Lost Sounds: the Rebel Yell

Recreating the sensory experience — sounds, tastes, smells, etc. — of the past is a fascinating challenge which historians have started to take much more seriously inĀ  the last decade or so. It’s easier when there are examples to work from, but recording and photographic technology aren’t much more than a century-and-a-half old, and surviving early recordings and photographs are very rare and often don’t cover what the historian really wants to know. Sometimes, though, you get lucky. The Museum of the Confederacy — an educational and historical institution, not a memorial to the Lost Cause — has found several early recordings of the long-lost “Rebel Yell” and used digital sound technology to recreate the battlefield experience. Then, Civil War Reenactors took up the call, so to speak, and you can hear a 400-man brigade recreate the sound in the second video. [Via Kevin Levin]