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Mumbles
The following foreword of a Ken Brooks books always comes to mind... IT WAS A terrifying sound, more horrible than you can imagine - "like a mountain lion and a coyote crying in chorus." That was how Union veterans of the Civil War described the rebel yell, battle cry of the Confederate soldier. In the spring of 1949, Texas historian Frank Tolbert located the four surviving Civil War participants, each over 100 years old. His goal was to put on tape - thus record for alltime - the dread rebel yell. The first veteran Tolbert located admitted he never could learn the yell. "Never had the right voice," he said. The second and third men told Tolbert they used to rebel yell, but no more. "It's a young man's yell," said one. Samuel Merrill Rainey, 103, was Tolbert's last hope. Raney was sitting in a rocker on the front porch of his farm house as Tolbert arrived. "Papa's your man," son George Raney, 75, told Tolbert. The elder Raney arose and let out a whoop that shook the ground. Tolbert ran to his car, returned with a tape recorder, and asked George where he could plug it in. "Can't. No electricity. Now you go into town, come back with some batteries and we'll do this thing." Two days later Tolbert returned. As he drove up the long dirt path to the farm, he spied a large red hen rocking in Raney's chair on the farmhouse front porch.
Tolbert knew, even before George, running through the fields to the car, could tell him. "Papa died."
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