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6 “more, more, more” The Rebel Yell in Popular Culture in 1954, close on the heels of the “flag fad” and in the midst of a burgeoning civil rights movement in America, the humorist H. Allen smith published a slim volume titled The Rebel Yell. Although many white southerners of the 1950s feared the homogenization of the nation and the loss of a distinct southern culture, smith turned the equation on its head. Comically noting that the melting Arctic ice cap would result in a warmer north, the illinois native opined that it “is up to us, in the north, to begin at once to learn the ways and the traditions of the south because they will be our ways and our traditions.” smith stood well outside the acoustic shadow of the lost Rebel yell when explaining that the screech “remains, today, a significant expression of southern character.” by studying and mastering the yell, he argued, northerners “will have taken a major step toward becoming passable southerners.”1 Though the book did nothing new in highlighting the Rebel yell among the “million and a half traditions and customs”of the south, smith’s whimsical approach represented a change. The Rebel Yell signaled that the screech, for generations the subject of serious inquiry and even reverence,had evolved into a subject worthy of laughter,even farce.The transformation of the Rebel yell into something lighthearted did not occur overnight,neither at the dawn of the twentieth century nor in 1948, with the reintroduction of the Confederate flag as a symbol of white southern defiance. in fact, a less-thanserious element can be found within nearly every stage of the yell’s history . students of the Civil War have long laughed when reading the story of Jubal early telling his troops, in 1864, to “holler” the Yankees into submission . And postwar theories about the origins of the screech, especially “more, more, more”: The Rebel Yell in Popular Culture / 125 those that strained credulity, inspired playful reactions and countertheories. Demonstrations of the yell by veterans, too, often amused younger generations .Those who watch the library of Congress footage of old Confederates giving the yell will note the laughter and applause of the assembled crowd after each exhibition of the scream. even the old soldiers themselves often laughed after hollering. something about grown men screeching off the battlefield seemed out of place and perhaps a bit silly.2 nonetheless, few writers prior to smith had produced a sustained comic treatment of the southern screech—especially for a national audience.smith based his book on a 1952 article he had penned for the Saturday Evening Post, in which he had tried to “nail down the rebel yell and embalm it in print.”He interviewed the writer James street in Chapel Hill, north Carolina , and prevailed upon him to offer his best rendition of the Rebel yell. later, on a visit to Richmond, virginia, smith encouraged the dignified Douglas southall freeman to share his version. According to the humorist, both men willingly reared back and blasted the air with screams so loud as to knock over household objects and to alarm the neighbors.street’s scream was a,“Rrrrrr-yahhhhhhhhhhhh-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip!”while freeman’s sounded like, “Yeeeeeeeeeeee-ahhhhhhhhhhhh!” smith also gathered versions from other southerners, always noting the disastrous consequences that the yells had on the eardrums and physical surroundings of the listeners.Clearly smith had great fun on his quest to set the screech down in print, and it appeared those he interviewed found the enterprise just as entertaining.3 in the larger book-length expansion, smith observed that many southerners objected to his Post article, flooding the magazine with “abusive”mail that suggested he “didn’t possess enough mother wit to pour pot-likker out of a boot.”but smith was exaggerating for effect.in truth,many southerners embraced the jocular spirit of the article.A reader from florida wrote in that the “damyankee author” had produced “right tolerable reading,” so much so that it inspired him to deliver his own Rebel yell late at night and with his house windows open. As a result, “the early-morning northbound train was jammed with frightened damyankees hurriedly seeking sanctuary north of the mason-Dixon line.”Happy to be in on smith’s joke,the writer claimed to be “a bit saddened by my wife’s decree that i must spend the coming saturday afternoon replacing pictures and repairing plaster jarred loose...

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