U.S. Camel Corps

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The U.S. Camel Corps was a mid-nineteenth century experiment by the United States Army in using camels as pack animals in the Southwest United States.

While the camels proved to be well-suited to travel through the region, their unpleasant disposition and habit of frightening horses is believed to be responsible for their failure to be adopted as a mode of transportation in the United States.

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[edit] Origin

The idea of using camels for military transport in the US dated back to 1836, when second lieutenant George H. Crossman began pressuring the United States Department of War to use camels in campaigns against Native Americans in Florida. It was not until after the U.S.-Mexican War (1846–1848) that the idea was taken seriously.

Newly-appointed Secretary of War Jefferson Davis (lobbied partially by adventurer Josiah Harlan) found the Army to be in need of a solution to its transportation problems in the western US. The rough terrain and dry climate was seen as being too rough on the horses and mules used by the Army, and camels provided a possible solution.

On, March 3, 1855, the US Congress appropriated $30,000 for the project. Major Henry C. Wayne, a promoter of the idea, was assigned to procure the camels. On June 4, 1855, Wayne departed New York City on board USS Supply, under the command of then-Lieutenant David Dixon Porter.

The ship crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and purchased camels at ports in North Africa (sources differ as to exactly where). On April 29, 1856, Supply arrived at Indianola, Texas with thirty-three camels and five Arabian drivers. The camels were to be transferred to a shallow draft boat the Fashion for unloading at the wharf in Indianola. Large swells made the transfer impossible and both ships had to go to the mouth of the Mississippi River to find calmer waters for the transfer. The Fashion arrived back at Indianola and unloaded the camels on May 14, 1856.[1] A second shipment of forty-one camels arrived on February 10, 1857.[2]

[edit] Use in the southwest

On June 4, 1856, light loads were placed on the camels and they were taken to Camp Verde via Victoria and San Antonio.[1]

Reports from initial tests were largely positive. The camels proved to be exceedingly strong, and were able to move quickly across terrain that horses found problematic. Their legendary ability to go without water proved valuable on an 1857 survey mission led by Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale from Fort Defiance to the Colorado River. The survey team and their camels continued on into California where they were stationed at the Benicia Arsenal.

The camels were tested again during a 1859 survey of the Trans-Pecos region to find a shorter route through the area to Fort Davis . Under the command of Lt. William Echols, the team surveyed much of the Big Bend area. In 1860, Echols headed another survey team through the Trans-Pecos that employed the Camel Corps.[2]

[edit] End of the experiment

With the arrival of the American Civil War, the Camel Corps was mostly forgotten. Many of the camels were sold to private owners, others escaped into the desert. These feral camels continued to be sighted through the early 1900s, with the last reported sighting in 1941 near Douglas, Texas.

Hi Jolly (Hadji Ali), an Ottoman citizen of Greek-Syrian parentage, who took part in the experiment as the lead camel driver, lived out his life in the US. He died in 1902 and is buried in Quartzsite, Arizona. His grave is marked by a pyramid-shaped monument topped with a small metal camel.

Some of the camels were purchased by Frank Laumeister, a veteran of the corps, and taken to the new Colony of British Columbia in 1862-1863 where they were engaged in freighting on the Douglas Road, Old Cariboo Road and other gold-rush era routes there. Between the region's rocky trails and roads and the mutual hostility between camels and mules, the experiment was a failure and the camels were set out to pasture, with the last sighting of a wild camel in British Columbia was in the 1930s. Their presence in local history is reflected in the name of the Camelsfoot Range near Lillooet, and in a local basin called "the Camoo".

Main article: Cariboo camels

[edit] See also

[edit] In Popular Culture

  • In 1976, Joe Camp, the creator of Benji and CEO of Mulberry Square, directed and released a comedy loosely based on the U.S. Camel Corps entitled Hawmps!. The movie was produced by Benji Films and released by Mulberry Square. Many of the characters were made up for the movie, with the exception of the character of Hi Jolly (Hadji Ali). The timeline for the movie was also changed, with the events of the movie taking place after the American Civil War.
  • A Confederate Camel Corps exists in Harry Turtledove's alternate history book series TL-191, set in a world where the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War and fought three additional wars against the United States in 1881, 1914 and 1941. Part of these wars were fought in New Mexico, where the "camelry" was active.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Wolff, Linda. Indianola and Matagorda Island 1837-1887. Eakin Press: Austin, 1999.
  2. ^ a b Francell, Lawrence John. Fort Lancaster. Texas State Historical Association, 1999.

[edit] External links

[edit] Further reading

  • Faulk, Odie B. The U.S. Camel Corps: an army experiment, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 1976
  • Fowler, Harlan D. Camels to California; a chapter in western transportation, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 1950
  • Froman, Robert. "The Red Ghost," American Heritage, XII (April 1961), pp. 35-37 and 94-98
  • Lesley, Lewis Burt (ed.). Uncle Sam's Camels: the journal of May Humphreys Stacey supplemented by the report of Edward Fitzgerald Beale, Huntington Library Press, San Marino, CA, 2006
  • Perrine, Fred S. (October 1926). "Uncle Sam's Camel Corps". The New Mexico Historical Review I (4): 434–444. http://books.google.com/books?id=K3IRAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA434. Retrieved 2009-07-15. 
  • Tinsley, Henry O. (March 1896). "Camels In The Colorado Desert". The Land of Sunshine 6 (4): 148–444. http://books.google.com/books?id=TPVYAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA148. Retrieved 2009-07-15. 
  • Yancey, Diane. Camels for Uncle Sam, Hendrick-Long Publishing Co., Dallas, TX, 1995
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