Maniacal Maelstrom
of Sound
— By Patrick Burke —
As I stood on the edge of the Brickyard Road, my right foot resting near the Seventh West Virginia left flank marker, I let my mind travel back in time. The summer heat I was experiencing was nothing like the heat on July 2, 1863, which was, reportedly, downright oppressive. I looked over the fields that the Confederate troops of Gen. Richard Ewell’s Second Corp traversed in order to get to the bottom of the steep incline on the east side of Cemetery Hill, and I wondered how any of those brave souls could actually have made it through the cannonade and musketry fire.
The Eleventh and Twelfth Corps of the Army of the Potomac sat waiting, entrenched in front of a mass of cannons that bristled out in every direction, like a porcupine’s quills, defending all the approaches the Confederates might use to attack the far right flank of the Union line. I imagined the skirmish line—comprised of the Forty-First New York and Thirty-Third Massachusetts—and saw them standing (or in most cases lying down or kneeling on one knee), watching a massive gray line come toward them. I saw a fleeting shadow out in the middle of the field where the Union skirmishers would have been waiting in front of the steep incline to the top of Cemetery Hill. I felt a chill, the kind that only happens when spirit energy is around me. The energy reminded me of a firsthand account from a Union soldier from the Forty-First New York. He reported that suddenly, through the smoke, the Rebels were on them. He fired one shot and chaos ensued around him. “We held the line for about one minute, and then we broke and ran back to the safety of our lines.”
The Cemetery Gatehouse on Cemetery Hill, where we captured audio of what sounds like the infamous rebel yell. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Confederate General Richard Ewell, whose troops attacked the Union entrenchments on Cemetery Hill on July 2, 1863. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Confederate Col. Isaac Avery of the Sixth North Carolina led his brigade forward as part of the initial advance that day, with Gen. Harry T. Hays’s Louisiana Tigers surging on his right. By the time Avery and his troops reached the cover of the bottom of the hill, however, they were already winded. They needed to catch their breath before pushing on to the heights. Huddled at the bottom of the hill, they were perfect targets for Union Col. Leopold von Gilsa’s Forty-First New York Infantry, who hid behind makeshift breastworks and rifle pits and fired down into the Confederate ranks.
With sheer determination and in perfect sync, Hays and Avery’s brigades charged up the steep slope with bayonets fixed, gave a rebel yell, and smashed into the Union defenders. They overran Von Gilsa’s infantry and engaged the cannoneers, who were busy loading and firing cannons. Fierce hand-to-hand combat ensued, with the cannoneers using ramrods and whatever pieces of equipment they could find as weapons. Avery and Hays pressed forward, forcing the Federals from their guns and taking charge of a key strategic position.
I could only imagine what it must have been like for the Union soldiers defending that hill. I had been to this area many times, and almost always I get a quick psi picture, a brief look into the history of the action. When that happens, it isn’t difficult for me to step into what a soldier may have been thinking at the time of the action:
Your cannons open up a brisk and effective fire, you think that should do them, but then you see the line, through brief gaps of the smoke-filled field, closing rank and steadily advancing. Before you know it, an order is given to ready arms and fire. Hot lead is zipping around you, men are falling to the left and right of you, and then that god-awful scream from thousands of throats … the rebel yell washes over you and the Confederates smash into your line. It holds for a minute, and then you are racing back to the safety of your entrenched comrades on the slope of Cemetery Hill.
In 1913, veterans of the battle reunited at Gettysburg to reflect and share recollections of the action that took place there fifty years earlier. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
As a result of heroic fighting by the rebels, the welfare of the entire Army of the Potomac lay in the balance. Confederate Maj. Samuel Tate of the Sixth North Carolina later described the action, “Seventy-five North Carolinians of the Sixth Regiment and twelve Louisianans of Hays’s brigade scaled the walls and planted the colors of the Sixth North Carolina and Ninth Louisiana on the guns. It was fully dark. The enemy stood with tenacity never before displayed by them, but with bayonet, clubbed musket, sword, pistols, and rocks from the wall, we cleared the heights and silenced the guns.”
But with no support forthcoming, the brave Confederate assault was doomed. While leading his troops forward, Avery fell from his horse bleeding, shot through the neck. Understanding the mortality of his wound, he scribbled a note that he handed to a subordinate. The note simply read, “Tell my father I died with my face to the enemy.” Avery died of his wounds the following day. Eventually, the Confederates had to retreat as a result of overwhelming pressure from Union reinforcements. The second day’s fighting ended—after much carnage and death—with little ground gained or lost by either side.
Another interesting aspect of the East Cemetery Hill fighting was that it could have been avoided altogether if not for a fateful decision made the day before. On the first day of fighting, the Rebels had pushed the Yankees all the way through Gettysburg to the slight heights overlooking the town. If Confederate Gen. John B. Gordon had roused his brigade, Day Two would have looked a lot different, if in fact fighting was necessary at all. Gen. Richard S. Ewell, Gordon’s commander, had instructed him to “take that wooded hill to the west of Cemetery Hill and occupy it.” Ewell knew that if the Confederates had seized Culp Hill, the entire Union defenses would have been enfiladed—Rebel cannons would have then raked through the Union line. But Gordon informed Ewell that his brigade had taken the brunt of the attack and were, in his exact words, “done in.” This thirty-second exchange may very well have changed the outcome of the battle, and in turn American history. But history doesn’t favor hindsight. On that day and forever more, a particular outcome was firmly etched into the fabric of time.
As paranormal investigators, our goal on Cemetery Hill—a century and a half later—was to capture some semblance of the fabled rebel yell. Having sent chills down the spines of many Union soldiers, this unnerving sound has been described in various ways, but the general consensus was that if you heard that yell, you knew that hell on earth was coming. Confederate Col. Keller Anderson of Kentucky’s Orphan Brigade described it best when he said, “Then arose that do-or-die expression, that maniacal maelstrom of sound; that penetrating, rasping, shrieking, blood-curdling noise that could be heard for miles and whose volume reached the heavens—such an expression as never yet came from the throats of sane men, but from men whom the seething blast of an imaginary hell would not check while the sound lasted.”
With my brother John and friend Mike Hartness accompanying me, we headed to the base of East Cemetery Hill where Avery led the North Carolinians. I turned on my audio recorder and asked the question I had asked 100 times before: “Would you brave men allow me to capture just a bit of what happened here on July 2, 1863 … whether it be the rebel yell or the Union huzza, or any other sounds of combat. I would be honored if you gave me a picture, or the rebel yell.”
There are times when a paranormal investigator gets what might be considered a special piece of evidence that is more of a personal gift than a random capture. It’s a unique moment, when time seems to shift back and allows you to see or hear what happened on that spot years ago. On this day, the brave men who gave their lives for their cause were listening to my request, and, somehow, they made it happen.
When I played back the EVP, I first heard what sounded like a gunshot, and then another, and then a very distinct yell. Shocked that I may have captured the actual rebel yell as an EVP, I compared my audio to a rare recording of the rebel yell at a 1913 reunion of the veterans of the Battle of Gettysburg. In the documentary footage, Confederate veterans are at the Bloody Angle wall—where Confederate Gen. Lewis A. Armistead’s brigade temporarily breached the Union line during Pickett’s Charge—facing the Union veterans who defended the wall fifty years earlier. Suddenly, you hear one of the Confederate veterans give the rebel yell as he twirled his hat over his head. A Union veteran responds, as if startled, “There it is. That’s the rebel yell.”
When we compared the EVP to the audio of the old Southern veteran, we noticed that, although the veteran’s voice was much older, the cadence and style were almost exactly the same. Was this a residual playback manifested by my thoughts and energy intermingling with the imprinted energies from the battle? Possibly. Or, just maybe it was a ghost soldier who understood that a kindred spirit yearned to hear what had not been heard for a very, very long time.
