The outbreak of the Civil War even gave something to American Football.
About a week after the firing upon Fort Sumpter, a thousand members of the 7th Regiment of New York came through Princeton on the train from New York City to Washington, D.C.
The Princeton townpeople cheered them at the train station and the Regiment gave them their "skyrocket cheer." It was the chanting sounds of a firework being set off.
There was the "ssssss" of the lit fuse; the "BOOM!" when the firework explodes and the "ahhhhhh!" of the pleased crowd.
If you repeat the quoted phrases over and over, faster and faster, you come up with American football's first cheer heard by the Princeton side at America's first intercollegiate football game on November 6, 1869!