USA HISTORY

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR(1861 1865)

THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN

[SOURCES]
Why did the Confederates yell when charging into the Union?

(A) They thought it was funny

(B) ** To intimidate their enemy

(C) ** To boost their own morale

(D) To make themselves feel more superior

EXPLANATIONS BELOW

Concept note-1: -The rebel yell was a battle cry used by Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. Confederate soldiers used the yell when charging to intimidate the enemy and boost their own morale, although the yell had many other uses.

Concept note-2: -Confederate morale had clearly dropped from the early optimism of 1861 and the steely resolve and confidence of early in 1863, but, in large measure, that drop in morale came because of battlefield losses, not the other way around.

Concept note-3: -Southerners enjoyed the initial advantage of morale: The South was fighting to maintain its way of life, whereas the North was fighting to maintain a union. Slavery did not become a moral cause of the Union effort until Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

Concept note-4: -military success was obvious to most educated Southerners during the war, and Confederate journalists used interchangeably the terms “morale” and “spirit” to signify attitudes (group or indi-vidual) that were conducive to the success of the war effort.

Concept note-5: -The rebel yell, the Confederate soldiers’ battle cry, is a sound we all know from westerns, in which it translates as a yee-haw. The Rebel yell was immortalized in the novel “Gone with the Wind” and in songs by Eminem and Billy Idol, who made it sound more like a yaaaaw.