JEFFERSON DAVIS'S CAMEL EXPERIMENT 141 



JEFFEKSON DAVIS'S CAMEL EXPEKIMENT 



By Professor WALTER L. FLEMING 



LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY 



WHEN Jefferson Davis was secretary of war he inaugurated an 

 interesting and important experiment for the purpose of deter- 

 mining whether camels could be used for transportation purposes in 

 the United States. Never before or since that decade preceding the 

 Civil AVar has the government been confronted with such serious prob- 

 lems as were caused by the territorial expansion of the late forties, and 

 of these not the least serious were the difficulties of communication and 

 of transportation on the far western frontiers. Even before the an- 

 nexation of Texas, New Mexico and California it had been a difficult 

 task to administer government on the outer frontier ; after the Mexican 

 war the troubles were multiplied. Immense territories had been added, 

 the frontier was more than doubled in length and was more exposed 

 and dangerous; much of the unsettled region was mountainous, or was 

 dry and without grass and water for pack animals and cavalry horses. 

 The settlements on the Pacific coast also had a frontier — an eastern 

 frontier which had to be guarded as well as the western frontier on 

 the other side of the moimtains. And for political and military 

 reasons it was necessary that communications between California and 

 the rest of the United States be made shorter and safer. The experi- 

 ences of the army officers, especially those of the Quartermaster's De- 

 partment, during the Mexican war caused them to turn serious attention 

 to the question of transportation. On account of the rough or desert 

 character of much of the country it was not jDossible to make much use 

 of horses and packmules. Eailroads, it was thought, would not for 

 years traverse any of this country, and would never open up all of it. 

 A formidable danger to frontier settlements, to small army garrisons 

 and camps, and to communication of any kind, lay in the attacks of the 

 hostile Indians of this region who, on their swift ponies, could make 

 sudden raids and escape capture by the foot soldiers or the small bodies 

 of cavalry.^ 



That the camel would suit such conditions was the belief of several 

 army officers and particularly of Jefferson Davis, who when a young 

 man had served in the army on the western frontier and later had com- 

 manded a regiment in the war with Mexico. The camel could travel 

 faster than a horse and carry heavier loads over rougher ground, could 

 go without water for days at a time and could live upon the poorest 



' See Eeports of Secretary of War, 1853-7. 



