Camels in the Cavalry

Back in the day, when Lt. Beale, a Navy officer, was ordered by the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers thru the War Department, to build that wagon road I was talking about, he was given secondary orders to "test the feasibility of the use of camels as pack animals in the southwestern desert."
 

Beale Survey Team

Now, my first question is, what's a Navy officer doing working for the Army?  Next, what's a Navy officer doing in the desert?  And finally, what does a Navy officer know about camels?! 

Regardless, Lt. Beale must have been a good officer because he did exactly as he was told.  In 1857, Beale and his team took a herd of 25 camels and rode from Fort Defiance in Apache Territory in Arizona to the Colorado River, did his thing along the way and then took the camels to the Benicia Arsenal in California.  The camels legendary ability to go without water proved invaluable.  They were super-duper strong and could move quickly across terrain that horses had a terrible time in.

But how did the camels get to Fort Defiance in the first place?  That's a pretty cool story in itself!

Seems as early as 1843 the War Department was being lobbied to use camels as pack animals.  By 1847, the lobbyists finally got the attention of a Senator, one Jefferson Davis of Mississippi.  (Yup, THE Jefferson Davis who later became President of the Confederate States of America!)  Even with Davis' support the camel lobby got nowhere with the War Department - until 1853 when Davis was appointed Secretary of War for the United States under President Franklin Pierce.  (Kind of ironic, huh?  Future President Davis of the Confederacy as Secretary of War for the Union.)  Now Pierce and Congress had to take this camel thing seriously.

You have to remember, even as late as the mid-1800's folks back East thought the southwest was some huge desert like the Sahara.  That's why Davis, and eventually Congress, ultimately decided to give those ol' camels a chance.  In March of 1855, Congress appropriated $30,000, and said, go buy your camels.

Well, here we go again.  Major Henry C. Wayne of the ARMY was put on a ship in 1855 and told to go buy some camels.  (We have the Navy in Arizona and the Army on a ship.  I don't know about you, but I'm confused!)  He left New York aboard the USS Supply, and sailed off for the Mediterranean.  They ultimately purchased 33 camels:  two Bactrain (those are the ones with two humps), twenty-nine dromedary, one dromedary calf, and one booghdee.  (Huh?  Whats a booghdee?!  Ah, ha!  It's like a mule!  Its a cross between a male Bactrain and a female dromedary.  Who knew?!  I wonder how many humps they have??)  Wayne was also smart enough to hire five camel drivers.

In April of 1856, the Supply landed safely in Indianola, Texas.  All the camels were in better health than when they were originally purchased!  That's pretty cool!  But, then again, they ARE called Ships of the Desert, so maybe they just naturally took to the sea.  (LOL.  I don't think that's the reason.  It was just a funny thought!)

One successful trip calls for another and by the first of 1857, forty-one more camels landed in America.  During this time there were some births and deaths of a few camels, so the grand total of camels in the United States Army now came to seventy.  Camp Verde in Kerr County, Texas became their home.

The first time, some of these camels were used was by Lt. Beale.  Then in 1859 they helped the Army survey a shorter route across the Trans-Pecos region of Texas to Fort Davis, and again during a survey of the Big Bend area of Texas.  In 1860 there was another survey done of the Trans-Pecos area that utilized the unique gifts of the U.S. Army Camel Corps.

Things were going so well with the camels that the Department of War requested another 1,000 be purchased, and there was a bill before Congress to do just that.  Then all ---- broke loose and the Civil War was on!  Jefferson Davis, of course, left the United States for the Confederacy, and the new Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, ordered the Camel Corps out of existence.

Now then, what does one do with a bunch of camels that freak out horses and mules with their behavior and smell?  Well, Beale had taken such a liking to the animals that he offered to keep the whole lot of them on his property.  Stanton, however, ordered them sold.  Some went to private owners, some "escaped" into the desert, but Beale bought some, including his favorite, Seid.  A few years later, during rutting season, Seid fought with another camel - and lost.  His bones, believe it or not, were sent to the Smithsonian!

Feral (domestic animals that have gone free in the wild) camels were sighted as late as 1941 throughout Texas and the Southwest - some apparently even made it to Canada!  There is even talk of GHOST camels being seen.  Now that would scare the britches off of ya'!

Hadji Ali, lead camel driver hired by Major Wayne in 1855, died in 1902, and is buried in Quartzsite, Arizona.  His grave marker is a pyramid-shaped monument with a metal profile of a camel on top.  Quite fitting, don't you think?