Overview of Camel Corps Experiment, Part 2

Lightly edited by Jim Fish

The following is from "When Camels Roamed Over Texas," by R. C. Crane, as it appeared in Dallas Semi-Weekly News on August 1, 1926:

"On another occasion, the capacity of the camel to travel over steep acclivities and on muddy roads was assessed with the most satisfactory results. Instead of making the detour rendered necessary in the location of the road to avoid a rugged mountain impracticable for wagons, the camels followed a trail that passed over it. Heavy rain occurred whilst they were at the depot to which they had been sent for supplies; the road was rendered so muddy that it was considered impassable by loaded wagons. The train of camels was nevertheless loaded with an average of 328 pounds each and returned to their encampment sixty miles in two days, suffering, according to reports, no interruption or unusual fatigue from mud or torrents of rain.

"These tests were considered by the army officers as practically proving the probable usefulness of the camel in the transportation of military supplies. But the camel had to be given time to acclimate to the frequent and sudden changes of Texas weather. They had to become accustomed to the herbage of the region, so different from that to which they had been accustomed in their native Egypt.

"The experiments, even up to the winter of 1856, were so satisfactory as to largely dispel the doubts which were entertained over the country over the availability of the camel for military uses in the United States. It was reported: "That the very intelligent officer who was sent abroad to procure them, and who remained in charge of them, expresses entire confidence, both of their great value for purposes of transportation and of their adaptation to the climate of a large part of the United States."

"But the original appropriation had not been exhausted with the purchase of the thirty-four camels, so the War Department arranged with the Navy Department for Lieutenant D.D. Porter, who became famous in the war between the states as Admiral Porter, commanding, to bring back forty more camels on a store ship on its return from the Mediterranean. These additional animals arrived in the winter of 1856-7. They were carried to Camp Verde, thus making about seventy camels on hand to continue the experiments.

"During 1857, all sorts of experiments were conducted using camels in 11 regions, and even in what is probably the roughest region of Texas, the Big Bend country of the Rio Grande, camels were used in these experiments. Their use in all cases was considered satisfactory. But in the Big Bend country, where they had to climb mountains so steep that they were compelled to get down on their knees and travel over rocks for days and carry barrels of water on their backs, it was learned that there was some limit to the endurance even of a camel and that constant travel over flint rocks would wear away their hoofs. In learning the capacity of the camel for transportation, his limitations were also learned, as was also something of humane treatment of him.

"In 1858, Secretary of War John B. Floyd said: "This entire adaptation of camels to military operations upon the plains may meow be taken as demonstrated, whilst their great usefulness and superiority in many particulars is equally certain."

"A heavy expense was necessarily incurred every year in the Quartermaster's Department of the army in furnishing transportation for troops while engaged in expeditions against roving tribes of Indians of the plains, and Secretary Floyd painted out that in all of these movements camels could be used to great advantage, suggesting that in the space of three days a well-appointed command could set out and traverse 150 miles without difficulty or much fatigue and fall upon any Indian tribe perfectly unawares. Troops could carry all necessary supplies for the campaign and traverse the arid plains without any inconvenience from want of water.

"The superiority of the camel over the horse would soon become so manifest for all movements on the plains and deserts that hostile Indians in those regions would soon come to understand the hopelessness of escape by flight and the folly of marauding where punishment was certain.

"The camels lived and thrived upon what would not sustain the hardiest mule, and consequently, the item of forage, one of enormous cost in the army, would be almost saved if the supply of camels was sufficient to answer the demands and requirements of the frontier service, according to Secretary Floyd. He recommended that Congress authorize the purchase of 1,000 camels for use in army transportation on the frontier.

"A little later, Gen. Robert E. Lee (then a Lieutenant Colonel, but in command of the United States military forces in Texas) took notice of the use of the camel in army transportation, and treated the experimental stage of their use as having about passed, and in his report to the War Department gave their use his indorsement and encouragement.

"But the war between the States came on, and that bloody struggle was pitched in regions where the use of the camel appears not to have been thought of, so the camel was turned loose on the range. But some of them having been carried to Arizona for use in the army, even now one occasionally reads of a stray camel being found in the wilds of that State, descendants of the camels which Jefferson Davis had brought to the United States for use in the army.

"There still is evidence at Camp Verde of the fact that camels once were prominent in that camp—the sheds built for them still are in a good state of preservation, but the fact is little known that the use of the camel was so close to solving the transportation question in the United States Army as herein indicated.

"When the clouds of war had lifted, and the soldiers came back to the frontier, the construction of railroads to the Pacific and to the West and Southwest were being pushed and were looked to solve the transportation question along all lines. Thus, the camels having scattered and disappeared, and the conditions completely changed, their use in the army became a closed incident."