On June 4, 1855, Major Henry Wayne departed from New York for the Mediterranean area with $30,000 and orders from Secretary of War Jefferson Davis to purchase several dozen camels. Shown is an Illustration from a report by Davis detailing the US Army’s Camel Corps, which operated in the southwest from 1855 – 1866.
The “U.S. Camel Corps” was a genuine military experiment aimed at solving transportation across the harsh, waterless American Southwest. While the camels proved incredibly resilient, outperforming mules and carrying heavy loads across the desert, the onset of the Civil War abruptly halted the program. Left without funding or interest, some camels were sold to circuses, while others escaped into the wild, leading to legendary sightings of feral camels roaming the deserts of Texas and Arizona well into the 20th century.
