During the early 1800’s, patrolling the vast, arid landscapes of West Texas and the Southwest Territories was difficult at best. Railroads in the Southwest didn't exist back then. Unlike the East, the Southwest didn’t have the rivers for steamboats. To maintain operations at U.S. forts, everything had to be hauled in with mules, wagons and stagecoaches. Maintaining ample supplies of feed for horses and mules was vital since forage was scarce. What was needed was a cost effective way, for the U.S. Army, to traverse the Southwest without the gallons of water and sacks of grain needed for horses and mules. The answer came from across the Atlantic Ocean in the Middle East.
In 1855, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis urged Congress to appropriate money for the purchase of camels to be used in Texas. After $30,000 was appropriated by Congress, Major H. C. Wayne boarded the navy supply ship USS Supply for a buying trip along the North African and Middle Eastern coasts. On May 13, 1856, Supply arrived at Indianola, Texas with a cargo of 33 camels, along with 3 Arabs and 2 Turks to handle them. Since camel saddles were not available or even seen in the United States, Supply brought them along as well. Wayne lead the first camel caravan from Indianola to Camp Verde in Kerr County, Texas, followed by a second, consisting of 41 camels. At Camp Verde, he helped train U.S. Army personnel in the use and care of camels, a talent he had acquired during his trip to the Middle East. The first camel driver hired by the U.S. Army was an Ottoman Turk named Hadji Ali. Brought over on USS Supply, he became one the first Muslims to set foot in Texas. Because no one in Texas could properly pronounce his name, much less spell it, he was referred to as “Hi Jolly.” Ali served with the U.S. Army as a camel driver and later handled mules as well. He also hauled supplies for miners using camels he had purchased for his own use. Ali died in 1902 and is buried at Quartzite, Arizona under a stone pyramid topped with a copper camel.
Among the camels’ duties were carrying supplies during long reconnaissance missions in Southwest Texas, carrying survey equipment across the New Mexico Territory to the California border, and hauling supplies and mail to the U.S. forts. The camels proved their worth by carrying up to 600 pounds, traveling miles without water, and ate almost any plant protruding from the ground, incuding cactus. In one remarkable instance, a camel was bitten by a rattlesnake and showed no effects from it. The problem, however, was their incompatibility with horses and mules – they frightened the hell out of them. Naturally, mule drivers preferred the more docile, smaller-sized mules over the more ill-tempered camels. They also emitted a strange, obnoxious odor and would spit on you when angered. In the end, they just couldn’t fit in with a frontier culture geared around horses, mules, wagons, and livery stables.
The camel experiment went bust during the Civil War. Those that fell into Confederate hands were used to haul cotton to Brownsville where it was sent across the Mexican border for arms. One even carried camp equipment for a Confederate Missouri Infantry company. A camel named “Old Douglas” served with the 43rd Mississippi Infantry. After the war, those still alive were auctioned off. Some ended up in traveling circuses. Eventually they all died off from old age, neglect, slaughter or being left in the wild to roam the Southwest desert. In 1902, while working cattle in the Arizona desert, a group of cowboys came across a dead camel. Wrapped around its neck in a poignant embrace was the deceased “Hi Jolly.”
