PHOTO: ©PHOTOSINDIA/CORBIS
Records show that some of the camels that US Army Major Henry Wayne bought for the US Camel Corps were two-humped Bactrian camels like this one.
creatures growled, bleated, groaned, snorted, snarled, and wheezed to show their displeasure. They only inter- rupted their grumbling to spit terrible, smelly liquid at the soldiers, who were struggling to get the awkward packs properly placed. Many of these men
weren’t noted for their patience with horses and mules and had even less patience with camels.
But woe to the frustrated soldier
who tried to “beat some sense” into a recalcitrant camel. The animals were known to bite and would lash out with their sharp teeth and deadly jaws— powerful enough to bite off an arm. Camels always remembered who had mistreated them, too, and would wait to get even. When enraged, they would try to knock their enemy down and then lie on him, crushing him. The camel drivers who had come to America with the camels had a strong respect for the animals’ fierce tempers, describing them as vindictive and unforgiving.
The Camel Corps Goes to Work While at Camp Verde, the US Camel Corps transported provisions and was engaged in military opera- tions against Native Americans in the region. In 1857, however, the Camel Corps was given a new mission when James Buchanan was elected presi- dent and appointed John Buchanan Floyd secretary of war. Floyd was
T H E E L K S M A G A Z I N E
intrigued with Jefferson Davis’ decision to use camels in the American Southwest and selected a former US Navy Lieutenant named Edward Fitzgerald Beale to take the fledgling US Camel Corps on some crucial overland surveying journeys. On one mission, Beale was to determine the best route for a wagon road from Fort Defiance, New Mexico Territory, to the Colorado River, a route that would become known as the Beale Road. Edward Beale left Camp Verde, Texas, in June 1857 with twenty-five camels, forty-four soldiers, plenty of horses and mules, and two camel drivers—Hi Jolly and Greek George. Beale, perched high on a huge, white camel named Seid, led the strange procession. The camels carried six- hundred- to eight-hundred-pound burdens, three to four times a mule’s load, and traveled twenty-five to thirty miles a day, although Beale estimated that they could easily have covered forty miles per day. The camels fared much better on the journey than the mules and horses that were on the expedition, and their dietary preference for the bitter
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