The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 5, Issue 4, Fall 2016 | Page 31

to look towards the private sector for gainful employment. The Portland, Oregon
Oregonian of 20 November 1865, noted:
A correspondent asked the other day, what had become of the
camels the U. S. had in Texas before the war. We have come
upon traces of one of these animals which seem to have joined
the rebels. . . . The first effort to introduce the camel into this
country was in process of successful experiment when the war
came and put a stop to it. One of the camels originally imported
for the purpose fell into the hands of one of Sterling Price’s
Captains of infantry, commanding a company from Noxubee
County, (Mississippi), who used it all through the war to carry
his own and the whole company’s baggage. Many a time on the
march he might have been seen swinging easily along under a
little mountain of carpet sacks, cooking utensils, blankets etc.,
amounting in all to at least 1200 lbs. 29
The upkeep of these animals was a heavy price to bear. The animals
required cleanliness, which meant that their keepers must scour their stalls every
day, and often whitewash them. Their daily allowance of food involved a gallon of
oats, ten pounds of hay, and a gallon of water to each camel, this spread by
periodic servings of crushed peas or barley. The animals got along very well on
this routine, even though their usual diet entailed the leaves and tender branches of
all types of bushes and shrubs. 30
William Brewer wrote about the ease of finding accessible food for the
camels, rendering the cost of feeding them negligible: “The creosote bush grows
in the more southern deserts, vile-smelling, with sticky, stinking leaves, so
repulsive that it is said even the camels will not touch it. In justice to the camel, I
should say that this fact has been denied. One of the men who had charge of the
camels introduced by Jefferson Davis, and tested on these deserts, told me that the
camels did eat sparingly of even the creosote brush.” 31
Locals did not like the camels. Free now to go where they pleased, rather
than drifting away and isolating themselves from humankind, the camels seemed
determined to loiter near the hangouts of men and to make trouble. Locals shot the
camels every time they could get in range of them. In 1882, numerous wild camels
were caught in Arizona and sold to a zoo, but a few survived all adversities and
roved at large in the desert areas of southern Arizona and Mexico. Occasionally
the soldiers in the garrisons of New Mexico and Arizona caught sight of a few
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