JEFFERSON DAVIS'S CAMEL EXPERIMENT 151 



humped) camels from the highhands of Asia for use in transporting 

 salt from Esmeralda County, jSTevada, to the Washoe Silver Mill, a 

 distance of two hundred miles. The discovery of a nearer supply of 

 salt left the camels without regular occupation. Some were used near 

 Virginia City as late as 1876 to carry cord- wood. ^^ 



When the civil war began the government camels were scattered. 

 Some were at Camp Verde, Lieutenant Beale's herd of twenty-eight was 

 in California, and others at various posts in Texas. Beale, whom in 

 1861 Lincoln had appointed surveyor-general of California, proposed to 

 Stanton that the government animals, which were scattered about in 

 California doing nothing, should be turned over to him for use in 

 carrying supplies and in making explorations. His request was not 

 granted. In 1863 an attempt vv^as made to use the camels in carrying 

 the mails between New Mexico and California, but the officers in charge 

 of the mails, knowing nothing of camels, objected and they were not 

 used. In 1864 the herd, now numbering thirty-five, was sold to Samuel 

 McLaughlin, who disposed of them later to circuses and zoological 

 gardens. -" 



The herds at Camp Verde and other places in Texas were constantly 

 used by the army quartermasters up to 1861. The ugly animals were 

 well known sights in the towns near Camp Verde and between San 

 Antonio and the gulf coast. But horses were often frightened by them 

 and people began to regard them as a nuisance; Brownsville had an 

 ordinance forbidding them on the streets. When the United States 

 forces were withdrawn from Texas in 1861, the camels fell into the 

 hands of the Confederates who made little use of them and spent little 

 care upon them. They were turned loose to graze and some wandered 

 away. Three of them were caught in Arkansas by union forces and 

 in 1863 they were sold in Iowa at auction. Others found their way 

 into Mexico. A few were used by the Confederate Post Office Depart- 

 ment. At the close of the civil war the animals at the Camp Verde 

 station, numbering sixty-six, were advertised for sale. Only three bids 

 were received, one for $5 each, one for $10 each, and one for $31 each. 

 So on March 8, 1866, the quartermaster in New Orleans sold to Colonel 

 Bethel Coopwood the camels then in Texas. Colonel Coopwood carried 

 them to Mexico and disposed of them to traveling circuses. 



The stray camels were heard from occasionally — stampeding horses 

 and ravaging fields. The Indians killed and ate some. The Navajos^ 

 it is said, once tied a Mexican shepherd to a camel's back and turned 

 the animal loose. During the seventies soldiers in the southwest re- 

 ported seeing strange camels.'^ Colonel Philip Eeade writes that in 

 July, 1875, he saw a herd of wild camels near Oatman's Flat, on the 



" Circular No. 53, Bureau of Animal Industry. 

 ^ Circular No. 53, Bureau of Animal Industry. 

 '^ Taylor-Trot wood Magazine, June, 1907. 



