The U.S. Camel Corps

S. Army's history to Brevet Major Henry C. Wayne. It read, in part, Sir, you are assigned to special duty in connection with the appropriation for importing camels for Army transportation and for other military purposes. The order represented a victory for Davis in a four-year struggle with Congress to establish a Camel Corps within the U.S.

Army. As a U.S. Senator, he introduced the measure in Congress in 1851 and 1852, only to have it literally laughed out of committee on both occasions. I'm Jason Epperson, and this is the America's National Parks Podcast. With over four million nights booked and thousands of five-star reviews from happy campers, RV Share is the largest RV rental website in the U.S.

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An American Camel Corps was initially suggested by Major George C. Crossman in 1837.. The idea was ignored at the time, but in 1848 two events combined to resurrect the Camel Project. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signaling the United States' victory over Mexico, added over one-half million square miles of new lands, including the vast deserts of the southwest, to the country's real estate. Almost simultaneously, the discovery of gold in California sent thousands of immigrants streaming across the new territory.

To the tiny 42,000-man U.

S. Army fell the duty of keeping the peace between the ever-increasing flood of settlers and the almost 100,000 indigenous people who inhabited the region. The southwestern deserts presented special problems to the cavalry horse and supply mule army of the 1850s. Military operations either ranged from waterhole to waterhole, or grain supplies and water casks had to be transported, reducing both the speed and the range of cavalry units. On the other hand, the Native Americans could travel without supplies, living off the inhospitable land and covering as much as 100 miles in a 24-hour day.

They found water in places unknown or inaccessible to the less mobile army units. Major Wayne, who saw these problems while in the southwest during the Mexican conflict, became the leading military advocate for a camel corps to be used in the desert regions of the country. He suggested the corps to a close personal friend with some influence, Senator Jefferson Davis from Mississippi, who would later become the president of the Confederacy. Davis, who was a colonel, also saw the problems of desert warfare in Mexico. Immediately, he sought funds for a test project.

Finally, four years later as Secretary of War, he secured a $30,000 appropriation, about a million dollars today, for the acquisition and testing of a small camel herd. A joint Army-Navy operation was put in motion. Major Wayne was in charge of the selection and purchase of the camels. Lieutenant David Dixon Porter, a 42-year-old naval officer, was assigned the task of safely transporting the animals to the United States. Porter, the son of a U.S.

diplomat, was raised in the Middle East and was familiar with the problems of camel care. He took several precautions to ensure the success of the mission. A 60-foot camel barn with individual stalls was constructed on the spar deck of the USS Supply. A special hatch was cut in the top deck to accommodate the huge beasts, and a novel forced air ventilation system was developed, which sent fresh air pouring out of the ship's sails into two specially designed hatches and out individual ports situated in each stall. A harness system was devised to hold the camels secure in rough weather, and a unique camel car was developed for loading and unloading the animals.

Wayne, after examining the preparations, left ahead of Porter for England on May 19 to visit persons whom it would be desirable to consult on points connected with this special service. The energetic Major visited the British Zoological Gardens, studied the camels there, and took a quick course in the feeding and care from M.S. Mitchell, Secretary of the Royal Zoological Society. Moving on to Paris in early July, Wayne discussed his mission with the French Secretary of War and made valuable contacts in the French Camel Corps. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Porter completed refurbishing the USS Supply and set sail for Italy, where he rendezvoused with his Army counterpart.

The two sailed for Tunisia immediately, and upon arriving there, they began their search for America's camels. In the next seven months, Wayne and Porter visited Alexandria, Cairo, and Constantinople. Their only difficulty occurred in Egypt, where there was an express prohibition against the removal of any animals. At first, the Egyptian Viceroy refused to allow the exportation of any camels because it would set a precedent for demands of a similar nature from other countries. However, persuasive arguments from the Major and a gift of two rifles convinced the Viceroy to allow the exportation of ten camels, including six from his own dromedary herd.

Wayne and Porter sailed for America with 33 camels on February 11, 1856.

. They had been careful to select their stock from a wide range of countries and from different breeds in order to compare the adaptability of the animals to the American climate. Nine of the 33 beasts were dromedaries or Arabian camels, the fast, mobile, one-humped variety. Twenty-three were the large, more powerful Bactrian, two-humped type. One was a hybrid.

Wayne's prize acquisition, a 2,000-pound, 7-foot-4-inch Bactrian, was so large that Lieutenant Porter was forced to modify the ship again to accommodate the huge beast by cutting a large hole in the deck to allow the animals' giant humps to protrude through. The two officers now faced the problem of getting their valuable cargo back to the United States alive. It was no small task. Some of the animals had been aboard the ship for almost five months already before the trip home, which would take another 87 days. As it turned out, the voyage, although stormy, was uneventful.

And on the morning of May 14, 1856, 34 camels, including one newborn calf, safely reached Indianola, Texas. Wayne described the scene, "...on being landed and feeling once again the solid earth beneath them, the camels became excited to an almost uncontrollable degree, rearing, kicking, crying out, breaking halters, tearing up pickets, and by other fantastic tricks, demonstrating their enjoyment of the liberty of the soil." Through the strenuous effort of the attending troops, Wayne managed to get his unruly camels stabled by eight that evening. Only 8,000 of the 30,000 appropriated for the project had been spent on the trip, and almost as soon as the camels were unloaded, Lieutenant Porter was ordered to return to the Middle East for more. He left by the end of July and returned on January 30, 1837, six months later, with an additional 41 animals. The U.S.

Army now had its Camel Corps.

While Porter was on his second trip, Wayne began testing the original 34 animals. The objectives of the tests were twofold. First, the Army wanted to determine the combat capabilities of the animals. A camel cavalry and mounted infantry and artillery units were envisioned. Second, and more important in the minds of top officials, was the transportation potential of the beasts.

The camel was viewed as a possible solution to the mind-boggling costs and lengthy time element involved in supplying military posts in the new territory. Jefferson Davis personally hoped that the tests would establish the commercial benefits of shipping goods by camel. The camel's home base was established at Camp Verde, Texas, 60 miles north of San Antonio. Here Wayne informally outlined his plans for the testing. The burdened animals can be used for transporting supplies from San Antonio to the camp and to other points.

The dromedaries may be sent express anywhere along the frontier or within the settlements, as necessity may require, and may be used as pack animals to scouting parties instead of mules. To ensure presidential interest in the camel project, Major Wayne sent a special package for delivery to President Buchanan. The attached letter read, I have the honor to enclose herewith a pair of socks, knit for the President by Mrs. Mary A. Shirkey of Victoria, Texas, from the pile of one of our camels.

Whether the President actually wore his camel hair socks goes unrecorded. Through Wayne's thorough testing program, it was soon apparent that the noble animal was simply not suited for the American style of combat. The configuration of the camel's nose, while admirably designed to filter out blowing sand, impeded breathing during exertion, and the camel's lung capacity was such that it could not maintain a sustained rapid pace. And unlike the horse, a camel was unwieldy in close situations. Notwithstanding all this, the most troublesome drawback of the combat usage of the camel was the resistance of both enlisted men and officers to it.

Compared to the horse, the camels required an extraordinary amount of care. Without it, they developed disease. What's more, the camel at best smelled different from the horse. At worst, it simply stank. Even after troops adjusted to the smell, the camels had three habits to which the men would not reconcile themselves.

Although generally docile, the camels could be stubborn, and if disciplined for their stubbornness, they would often vomit on the disciplinarian. This and the camel's ability to defecate without any warning whatsoever to anyone standing to their rear, quickly overrode whatever lovable or useful qualities they may have possessed. What's more, the shaggy creatures could deliver a vicious bite when annoyed with their keeper. Finally, the troops complained of motion sickness after riding the animals for any distance. After a series of incidents, a rash of complaints, and a series of tests, Wayne unhappily reported that the combat usage of the camel in America was not feasible.

But if the camel was a failure for Americans as a combat animal, it was a godsend for quartermaster units then in charge of supply transportation. Ordinary dromedaries could easily carry a 550-pound load, slightly more than twice what a common pack mule was expected to carry. The larger dromedaries could comfortably pack seven to eight hundred pounds, and on occasion would carry as much as a thousand. for short distances. The larger and stronger Bactrians could carry close to three-fourths of a ton with ease.

In February of 1857, Wayne staged a demonstration to the doubting public. He wrote of the incident, "'Kneading hay at the camel yard, I directed one of the men to take a camel to the quartermaster's forage house and bring up four bales. Desirous of seeing what effect it would produce on the public mind, I mingled in the crowd that gathered around the camel as it came to town. When made to kneel down to receive its load and two bales, weighing in all 613 pounds, were packed on, I heard doubts expressed around me as to the animal's ability to rise under them. When two more bales were piled on, making the gross weight of the load 1236 pounds, incredulity as to his ability to rise, much less to carry it, found vent in positive assertion.

To convey to you the surprise and sudden change of sentiment when the camel at the signal rose and walked off with his four bales of hay would be impossible.

'" Wayne not only proved that the camel's payload was larger than the pack mules, but he also established their advantages over the mule-drawn wagon. The Major first successfully pitted camels against wagons in September of 1856.. He recorded the experiment in his report to Jefferson Davis. "'I sent down six camels under my clerk, Mr. Ray, to San Antonio for oats in company of wagons from this post.

Both the wagons and the camels were timed, and their loads were carefully measured. The camels won easily.'" By October 1856, Major Wayne expressed the belief that he had conclusively proved the camel's worth for both the military and civilian cargo transportation in the Southwest. He wrote, "'The usefulness of the camel in the interior of the country is no longer a question here in Texas among those who have seen them work or examined them with attention. With his task apparently at an end, Wayne was transferred from the project in January of 1857.. Before leaving Camp Verde, however, he recommended a large-scale field trial of the camels, which would prove the value of the humped creatures once and for all in the minds of the public and the Congress.

Enthusiastic officials in the War Department liked the idea, and 25 camels were included with a military survey expedition scheduled to map a wagon road from Fort Defiance, Arizona, to the Colorado River. No more severe test of the camel's worth could have been proposed. The bone-dry route stretched from barren Texas plains across the Sandia Mountains into the New Mexican wastelands to Fort Defiance. From here, the route led through Arizona's high desert and petrified forest areas and directly down into the scorching Mojave Desert. President Buchanan personally appointed a former Navy lieutenant turned explorer, Edward Fitzgerald Beale, to lead the survey.

Beale Street in Memphis would later be named after him. On June 25, 1857, the expedition, complete with 46 mules and 250 sheep for delivery to Fort Defiance, surged westward with 25 camels from Camp Verde. The camels assigned to Beale were only recently off the boat, having been acquired by Lieutenant Porter during his second voyage to the Middle East, and Beale was initially disappointed with their performance. Two weeks in, however, Beale wrote. with growing confidence in the animals, The camels are now keeping up with the train and come into camp with the wagons.

As the days continued to pass, Beale's appreciation of the camels grew. After traveling on gravel road for several days in late July, the lieutenant commented, It is the subject of constant surprise and remark to all of us how their feet can possibly stand the character of the road we've been traveling over for the last ten days. It is certainly the hardest road on the feet of barefooted animals I have ever known. A few days later he wrote, The camels are traveling finely. It is worthy of special note that I have never seen or heard of one stumbling or even making a blunder.

By September 6, two and a half months out, Beale could not contain his optimism for the tireless camels. Certainly there never was anything so patient and enduring and so little troublesome. They pack their heavy load of corn which they never taste, a grain, put up with any food offered them without complaint and are always up with the wagons, with all so perfectly docile and quiet that they are the admiration of the whole camp. The most severe test of the entire journey for the camels occurred in September of 1857, somewhere near the vicinity of the modern town of Winslow, Arizona. The expedition was virtually out of water, unsure of their location and led by an inept scout.

Beale recorded the incident, Our guide came back to tell that the distant mountain towards which our course was directed was not the one he thought and that he was completely lost. I ought to have killed him there, but I did not. Beale set up a dry camp twenty miles from the nearest known water. As the troops broke out a small keg of water for the animals, Beale observed, Our animals were now beginning to suffer very much, having been almost constantly at work for thirty-six hours without water, and one of the most painful sights I have ever witnessed was a group of mules standing over a small barrel of water and trying to drink water from the bunghole, and seemingly frantic, with distress and eagerness to get at it. The camels appeared to view this proceeding with great contempt and kept quietly browsing on the grass and bushes.

The mules were saved the next morning when Beale set them free and they raced full gallop back to the last known waterhole. Beale ended his mission on October 18th when the strange caravan reached the Colorado River. He then herded the camels to California, where they were stabled at a nearby camp, only a few hundred yards from the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, for the sake of testing their capability with standing cold.

After a brief stay in the Golden State, Beale packed up several of the camels and retraced his trail eastward in order to test the practicability of the roads surveyed last summer for winter transit. He reached Fort Defiance on February 21st, 1858, ending the Camel Corps' first and only major expedition. The camels' unqualified success as cargo transports convinced new Secretary of War John B. Floyd of their value, and after receipt of Beale's report, he proclaimed, the entire adaptation of the camels to military operations on the plains may now be taken. as demonstrated.

Floyd enthusiastically requested an appropriation in 1858 for the purchase of a thousand more camels. The request was not acted upon, but Floyd tried again in 1859.. By that time, however, the request was lost in a Congress preoccupied with the tensions between the North and the South. When the Civil War was finally declared in 1861, the Federal Camel Herd was located at two widely separated posts, 80 animals in Texas and 31 in California. For reasons unknown, the results of the camel tests went unheeded, and the Union considered the animals a liability.

The Confederacy assumed the bulk of the burden from their northern brothers when they captured Camp Verde on February 28th, 1861.

. The remaining 31 Union camels in California languished at the post, used only for modest hauling purposes and for mail transportation in the vicinity of the fort. Despite the Confederate government's positive attitude towards the Camel Corps, the smelly brutes were just as unpopular with the Southern men as they were with the Union. There were several recorded instances of malicious killing of the animals by Confederate troops. The Union camels in California fared only slightly better after being named a public nuisance in a lawsuit because of their odor, and after repeated complaints from officers that the camels were useless, expensive, and troublesome, the entire herd, numbering 37, including Berths, was sold at public auction in San Diego.

Circus owners purchased most of them. A few went to prospectors, and some were purchased by ranchers. The Confederate camels were ultimately reacquired by the U.S. after the war, and within a year were auctioned off. Upon Beale's return trip, the group passed a reliable waterhole, hidden at the base of a sandstone bluff named El Morro, or the Headland, a popular campsite for hundreds of years.

Here, ancestral Puebloan, Spanish, and American travelers carved over 2,000 signatures, dates, messages, and petroglyphs. It's the world's largest autograph book. Of the names inscribed, you can find Edward Beale, P. Glimmer, Breckenridge, E. Penn Long, and F.

Engle, Jr.

, all part of the group we now refer to as the U.

S. Army Camel Corps. El Morro National Monument rises about 100 miles west of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and is home to the famed rock, ancient Pueblos, camping and hiking trails.

This episode of America's National Parks was hosted by me, Jason Epperson, and adapted from an article by John Shepard of the U.

S. Army's Military Review. If you enjoy the show, please consider leaving us a rating and a review. If you're new here, make sure to subscribe to the podcast to get new episodes delivered to your feed. If you're looking for photos and tips about visiting national parks, check out the America's National Parks Facebook group, and if you're interested in RV travel, we hope you'll also check out the RV Miles podcast and YouTube channel.

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