Of all the bizarre tasks performed by the U. S. Navy in its history, none was more unusual than the mission given to Lieutenant David Dixon Porter, USN, one hundred years ago.
To begin with, the naval lieutenant’s orders came not from the Navy but the Army. Secondly, the orders were unique: to purchase and transport to Texas from the Levant a sufficient number of camels to “demonstrate the adaptation of the animal to the climate and circumstances of our country and its value for military purposes.” Thirdly, though this drama is now largely forgotten, the cast of its principal characters was a highly historic one: Lieutenant William F. Lynch, USN, whose use of camels in his 1847 exploration of the River Jordan and the Dead Sea germinated the idea of using camels to open the West; Lieutenant David Dixon Porter, who was to achieve lasting fame as one of the principal naval figures of the Civil War; Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale, a naval officer of the Mexican War who later surveyed the West, brought the first California gold East, explored Death Valley with Kit Carson, and who was the first, only, and last commander of a camel corps in the United States; the then Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, who is better remembered as the President of the Confederacy; and finally, Robert E. Lee, then a Colonel of infantry stationed in Texas, who by some legendary accounts laid out the location and plans for the only camel camp in America at Camp Verde, some sixty miles north of San Antonio, Texas.
Had the Civil War not interfered with this project, the camel might today be remembered by Americans as more than a cigarette and as familiar as the horse or the mule. Such phrases as “drawing a dead camel,” the “camel latitudes,” and the “Camel Marines,” might today be common in naval parlance. Even the hardheaded Porter was so impressed by camels that he predicted that American sporting men would supplant horse racing with camel racing and sponsor a new sport, camel wrestling. “I hope to see the day,” Porter said, “when every southern planter will be using the animal extensively.”
If the idea of camels in America seems fanciful today—as indeed it seemed to most Americans in 1856—we must remind ourselves that scientists tell us that 10,000 years ago men hunted camels in what is now the United States. Notwithstanding, most Americans still view the camel either as a circus animal or a hot-weather “ship of the desert,” whose natural habitat is sand and sun. They do not know that camels thrive in climates far more seasonal and severe than Texas and Arizona, where it was planned that they be used.
As strange as it now seems, the importation of 75 camels in 1856-57 proved that camels were perfectly adaptable to American terrain and climate and that they had especial value for military purposes. Only the Civil War killed the project.
To understand why the camel project was begun, the reader must appreciate the conditions that existed in our Southwest in the early 1850’s. Gold had just been discovered in California. There were no railroads or highways from the Mississippi to the Coast. The few trails that existed were constantly harassed by hostile Indians. Hundreds of thousands of square miles of the newly- acquired Mexican territory were unknown and unexplored, and it was necessary to establish military posts throughout the region. In fact, the new land west of the Mississippi was commonly supposed to be a vast Sahara Desert.
Jefferson Davis, then a Mississippi senator, first broached the camel-scheme to the Senate Military Affairs Committee in 1851. Camels in America? Preposterous! With roars of laughter and a 24-to-19 vote, the proposal was chucked aside.
Davis persisted the next year and succeeded in convincing his senatorial colleagues. This time, however, the House of Representatives dissolved into laughter and refused to approve the Senate’s amendment. Camels were circus animals, not military beasts. Didn’t Jeff Davis know that God had created the camel last, using all the left-over parts of other animals?
By 1853, Davis had become the Secretary of War in President Pierce’s administration and he was in a somewhat better position to sponsor the project. Finally, in 1855, Congress appropriated §30,000 for the experiment.
As in almost every military adventure in American history, before and since, the sponsors of the camel project, having at last received both Congressional approval and money, now turned to the Navy for its accomplishment. Would the Navy pick a commander and select a ship to go to the Levant to bring home a few camels? The task required an international diplomat, an accomplished auctioneer, a patient herdsman, as well as a seasoned and skilled sailor.
Chosen for the task was Lieutenant David Dixon Porter (“hump” officers please note that Porter was a lieutenant for twenty years). Jefferson Davis wrote an enthusiastic endorsement of the 42-year-old officer acknowledging Porter’s “professional ability and energy” and slating that “he adds a knowledge of the East from residence there and brings to the undertaking an appreciation of its value and the conviction of its practicability.” In less than six years, Davis would remember this officer’s professional ability and energy, for Porter would play a leading role in the division of the Confederacy.
Porter was indeed happy to have the unique assignment and command of the USS Supply. He proceeded to the New York Navy Yard and, with his accustomed foresight and energy, commenced conversion of the little sailing vessel to make her a suitable camel stable.
To those who believe the Navy’s “mobile logistic support” concept a World War II innovation or the present Sixth Fleet a last-decade positioning of U. S. ships, the mission of the shiprigged USS Supply in the 1840’s and 1850’s will come as a surprise. She was a 141-foot, 547-ton storeship whose principal duty was to carry supplies from the Eastern seaboard to the ships of our Mediterranean Squadron. The little ship had a proud record. She had supported the earlier-mentioned 1847 expedition by Lieutenant Lynch to explore the Dead Sea. She had rendered service in the Mexican War, and had served as “underway replenishment” vessel for Commodore Matthew Galbraith Perry’s famous expedition to Japan.
Porter’s first job for the camel expedition was the construction of a 60-foot long, barnlike structure on the Supply’s spar deck. His construction plans were thorough; cargo hatch in the top to accommodate the camels; two small hatches for ventilation windsails; hayracks for the feed, large lantern and reflectors for nightlight, two large water tubs and pumping apparatus for use in case of fire.
Porter’s second task was a special camel car and boat. Knowing that a big camel would weight as much as 2,000 pounds, and that hoisting them in slings like horses or mules was impractical, Porter undertook the design of these two features personally.
“To get the camels on board safely,” he wrote in his report, “1 had a boat made expressly for the purpose, and a camel car (to fit inside the boat) in which the camels were placed when hoisted in or out; the boat was made ‘scow fashion’ and flat-bottomed, to draw but little water and enable it to run up on a beach . . . the camel car was made of heavy oak, upright pieces and solid bottom, bolted strongly together and fitted with six small trucks (so as to roll it in and out of the scow if necessary) and at each end it had a sliding door to ship and unship, and allow the camel to go in and out; notwithstanding the great strength of the car, it was not any too strong for the purpose; although with the wood and iron on it weighed one thousand pounds; at times, the camels were so troublesome to get in and so strong and refractory when they were in, that they started the frame of the car in one or two places. ...”
The voyage began on June 3, 1855, with Porter’s first port of call La Spezia, Italy. Here, Porter unloaded cargo for the Mediterranean Squadron and then awaited the arrival of his Army counterpart, Major Henry C. Wayne (who had gone ahead to London and Paris to learn what the English and French knew about camels). While awaiting the Major, Porter decided to investigate a report of a herd of camels in Pisa, Italy.
“I arrived in Spezia in 38 days after leaving New York,” Porter recorded, “ ... to examine the camels of (the Grand Duke of) Tuscany . . . the original stock of which was brought from Egypt about 200 years since, and they have increased and multiplied to several hundred . . . the Duke has now on hand a number sufficient to do the work of one thousand horses. ... I found the Pisa camels not in the best condition, owing to their having been much overworked and badly cared for, being supplied with no food whatever beyond what they could glean from among the pine barrens, and not always being housed in winter in latitude 43° 30' where they experience- severe cold, and encounter a much more trying climate than that of Texas. . . .”
The USS Supply next proceeded to Tunis arriving on August 4, 1855, a market day, where Porter and Wayne went ashore. Since information on the care and breeding of camels was non-existent in American libraries, and almost as sketchy in English and French, the two officers had determined to buy a “make-you-learn” camel and teach themselves how to keep and feed it aboard ship before purchasing a whole shipload.
As the two officers marched through the crooked lanes of Tunis to the camel market, the natives eyed them with mixed feelings of curiosity and suspicion. Veiled Mohammedan women risked the curse of Allah to peer at their military figures. A swarm of small children followed at their heels, and every Arab with an eye for business offered them the bargains of the city.
At the reeking camel corral, camels were selling cheap that day. No sooner did Major Wayne ask the going rate than prices jumped miraculously. The Arab auctioneer muttered something unintelligible, but a kindly, self- appointed interpreter with the aid of his hands and feet explained that the price of one camel was equivalent to $20. The two officers promptly bought one. Never before in the memory of those gathered in the camel exchange had an animal been sold on the first quotation. So surprised was the auctioneer that he offered to escort the beast personally to the dock.
After taking abroad this camel and two others presented the next day as a gift from the Bey of Tunis, Major Wayne wrote in his official report: “News of my coming flew before me on the wind, and every sore-backed and superannuated camel in Asia Minor was doctored up and hurried to the Coast to be generously offered to the United States at a grievous sacrifice of ten times its value.”
Departing Tunis on August 9, Porter headed for the Crimea, where there was a war on, and where, it was reported, camels were in use. Porter arrived only a few days after the famous charge of the Light Brigade. In addition to investigating the military use of camels, Porter also took time to inspect the captured fort of Malakoff and to see the armor-plated floating battery that had been used to reduce it. (This information would find later use at Vicksburg.)
“The Arab camel was used in the Crimea,” Porter recorded after his visit, “particularly in the beginning of the war when horses could not be procured. They were found at that time to be very serviceable in carrying up the heavy weights which horses could not move. If any doubt exists about the camel being able to endure the coldest kind of weather, a reference to the weather and winter of 1855-56 in the Crimea will convince the most skeptical that cold is not the greatest inconvenience they have to apprehend. . . . ”
Arriving in Alexandria on November 29, Porter and Wayne at last felt themselves self-trained and ready to buy the first shipload of camels. Porter had doctored two of his three “make-you-learn” camels with sulphur, dough-balls, and paregoric, had cured one of a stubborn case of itch, and had learned that camels did not get seasick.
In Egypt, the camel hunters spent several weeks and encountered several unexpected problems, the chief one being a flat turndown for their camel-export request. Accompanied by the American consul, Porter called upon the Viceroy of Egypt to explain that his camels were to be used for a scientific experiment in the United States, not for war use in the Crimea, and was finally granted permission to export ten camels. In fact, the Viceroy promised six of his finest, fastest camels to the U. S. government.
“The selection of these animals was placed in the hands of the Governor of Alexandria,” Porter related. “He passed the matter on to the next in office, who in turn passed it on to an under officer who went to work to make a handsome profit out of the business. After more than a week’s delay, and many inquiries on my part as to when we might expect them, I was at last informed that the dromedaries were ready to be delivered over to anyone I might send for them. I sent an officer to receive them, who returned in a few minutes and informed me that the animals were so wretched in appearance and so rotten with disease that he would not take the responsibility of accepting them without further orders. To avoid all mistakes, I went and inspected them myself, and found them infinitely worse than they had been represented. They were not dromedaries at all, but the common street camel of Alexandria, the most ill-used and wretched looking beast in the world. . . . The whole affair, at first, looked like a studied insult, for the purpose of turning the expedition into ridicule. I promptly refused to receive the present. ...”
Insults to the United States, whether studied or unstudied, were neither taken lightly nor silently absorbed by naval officers one hundred years ago. The usually equanimous Porter immediately dispatched a stinging letter to the Egyptian Viceroy:
“If the Government of the United States were to send His Excellency a present of rusty muskets or a rotten ship, I am sure he would not appreciate it. We have too good a country, my dear sir, to allow anyone to depreciate it by such offerings. Crowned heads and despots in their intercourse with each other omit no courtesies and make no presents they would blush to show. There is as much due to the intelligence of our country as to any crowned head in Europe, and we will not accept any gift unless made in proper manner.”
Porter’s stout refusal to accept the street camels was promptly remedied.
“When this piece of trickery was brought to the notice of His Highness the Viceroy,” said Porter, “he put the matter into proper hands, and in seven days a fair lot of dromedaries were brought down from the interior and six were selected. . . .”
Before starting home, the USS Supply made one more stop, at Smyrna, for a final group of camels. This group included four of the famed wrestling camels (which were to furnish “Happy-Hour” entertainment on the long voyage home), and one “Tulu,” a huge female camel weighing more than 2,000 pounds and standing seven feet and four inches high. Porter was obliged to cut away part of his main deck overhead to accommodate this lady’s hump.
Porter now had 33 camels in his stable. On February 14, 1856, the Supply set sail for Texas.
Certainly one of the strangest documents in the archives of the U. S. Navy is Lieutenant Porter’s “Daily Journal Kept on the Camel Deck.” Porter personally supervised the camels, selecting a seaman, Edward Fitzsimmons, as cameleer assistant. He also composed a rare document—“Rules and Regulations of the Camel Deck”—which listed fifteen do’s and don’ts: cameleers were to swing their hammocks with the animals; no open lights were allowed; measurements of feed and grain for each animal were to be kept; dung was never to be left lying on deck; camels’ feet were to be washed twice a week; their “callosities” were to be frequently oiled.
In the months that followed, Porter proceeded to learn more about camel care, camel diseases, camel breeding, and camel habits than any person in the United States, before or since. Here are a few of his observations:
ON CAMELS FOR SPORTING: “Perhaps the love of amusement (as our countrymen are fond of novelties) may render the importation of camels in Texas popular, if their utility does not recommend them. I have no fear but they they will soon find out their value in other respects. A Turk, who was told that we had no camels in America, expressed much surprise and said that we must be many years behind the age.”
ON CAMELS VERSUS INDIANS: “These camels could serve to form a corps of mounted dromedaries that would soon drive everything in the shape of hostile Indians out of the country, for the Indian could not escape on the swiftest horse the steady, enduring pace of the dromedary, which will carry him a hundred miles a day.” ON CAMEL UTILITY: “Their usefulness is beyond comparison: She supplies a family with milk far richer than that of the cow, clothes them with wool she yields in abundance, and which is as fine and as warm as that of the sheep; she carries produce to market and is satisfied with nibbling the dried grass she can pick up on the roadside; it costs but little to feed her and she continues her usefulness to an age which the cow or horse scarcely ever reach.”
ON YOUNG CAMELS AT SEA: “Young camels are very little trouble on board after they are ten days old; having been born at sea, they are perfectly steady on their legs, even in the heaviest weather, and when a sailor has to hold on, they can balance themselves and not fall.”
The passage to the United States was stormy and rough, but the camels stood it well.
“The first ten days we had nothing but head winds and heavy head seas,” Porter recorded, “and in that time, we experienced two gales of wind in which the ship rolled heavily; the camels stood it all beautifully, and not one of them received the slightest injury. . . . During most of this time the camels had to be kept secured on their knees, and were only permitted to rise, one at a time, to remake their beds of hay. They bore the rolling admirably, and did not seem to have suffered in the least, although during ten days they obtained scarcely any repose. ...”
For the 87-day passage, the lieutenant personally kept an eagle eye on his charges, occasionally applying his sweet oil, turpentine, or paregoric medicines. Cleanliness was the watchword. Six camels were born, four were mated, and four calves and one adult camel died during the difficult winter passage. The log of the camel deck is a running commentary of the daily problems:
“ . . . heavy weather coming on again; prepared to secure animals; blew heavily in the night and ship labored badly” . . . “this day the two calves died, the mothers having dried up, and when they had milk, refused to let them suck {sic transit catnellus)” . . . “gave all the animals a little sulphur with their feed” . . . “curried and brushed animals as usual; scrubbed deck with lime and sand” . . . “4,000 people visited ship (in Jamaica) this day to see camels” . . . “whitewashed again…”
On May 14, 34 camels were landed at Indianola, Texas, under the gawks of several hundred disbelieving Texans.
“On being landed,” Porter recorded, “and feeling once again the solid earth beneath them, the camels became excited to an almost uncontrollable degree, rearing, kicking, crying out, breaking halters, tearing up pickets, and by other fantastic tricks demonstrating their enjoyment of the ‘liberty of the soil.’ Some of the males, becoming pugnacious in their excitement, were with difficulty restrained from attacking each other.”
From this strange rumpus, if a newspaper account of the unloading can be believed, the terrified Texan spectators and their wildeyed horses scattered in every direction.
Even while the first camels were being unloaded, Porter received a new set of terse orders: “Make another trip for camels,” ordered Secretary Davis. Porter did so, and on February 10, 1857, almost a year later, returned with the second and final load of 41 camels. On this voyage, Porter also brought along eight camel tenders—Greeks, Arabs, and Turks.
Now that 75 camels were on American soil, the first task was to overcome the general skepticism that surrounded them. In order to demonstrate their weight lifting ability, Wayne took one camel to Indianola, and before a peering crowd of Texans, loaded two heavy bales of hay weighing more than 600 pounds on a kneeling camel.
“The gaping crowd gave noisy expression to their astonishment and indignation,” Wayne related, “and gentlemen who had never been to camel-land were willing to bet considerable that the critter couldn’t get up under the heft of that.”
Thereupon, Wayne loaded two more bales on the camel. In bug-eyed amazement, the Texans watched the camel quietly rise with the 1,200-pound load and walk away.
One by one, the other objections to camels were eliminated. Their large, ungainly feet proved ideal for the flinty trails of the Southwest, carrying the camels over country that would have crippled an unshod horse or mule. The superstition that camels could not swim was exploded during Lieutenant Beale’s expedition to Los Angeles when all 25 camels successfully swam the Colorado River while two horses and ten mules were drowned. Beale also reported that the camels got fat “eating mesquite bush and thorny shrub in terrain where horses would have starved.” The camels also proved immune to rattlesnake bites, and, of course, their legendary ability to travel for days with a heavy load without water was confirmed.
One difficulty, never solved, was the reaction of horses and mules whenever a camel hove into view. The mere appearance of the “hump-backed horses” (as the camels were called by the Texans) was enough to make the most docile horse frightened and frantic. At the approach of the lumbering, prehistoric beasts, any cavalry troop became a stampede.
So successfully did the camels vindicate themselves, that a recommendation went to the Secretary of the Army for the further importation of one thousand camels. No less respected a person than Colonel Robert E. Lee endorsed the camel “whose endurance, docility, and sagacity will not fail to attract the attention of the Secretary of War. . . .”
The Secretary approved the recommendation with a strong endorsement. But in the halls of Congress, secession and slavery were the topics of the hour and the recommendation was pigeon-holed.
As for the eight cameleers whom Porter brought to Texas, two of them achieved a measure of fame. The Arab, known as “Long Tom,” cared for a group of the camels with the Ringling Brothers Circus for more than a quarter century. Another Arab, Hadji Ali (nicknamed “Hi Jolly”) hunted gold in California, prospected the Plomosa Mountains, and acted as an Army guide and scout in Arizona. The legend of “Hi Jolly’s” death is one of the West’s most colorful stories.
Then in his 75th year, “Hi Jolly” happened to be in a Quartzite, Arizona, saloon when a prospector walked in, asked for a drink, and excitedly told of seeing a red camel in the desert. The aged “Hi Jolly” questioned the prospector as to where he had seen the camel, and on being told, walked out of town to find the animal. Several days later, “Hi Jolly” was found dead in the desert, his arms around the neck of the red camel which had also died.
Was this red camel one of the young ones “Hi Jolly” had cared for on the pitching deck of the USS Supply a half-century before?
There are people living today who still remember seeing Lieutenant David Porter’s camels. One of these, General Douglas Mac- Arthur, remembers seeing the camels at his father’s army post. Some of the original camels stayed in Texas, others were taken to California. A few of the latter found their way to Nevada where they were used in the silver mines. Others were sold to circuses and zoos. A few wandered off into the deserts and canyons of the Southwest. As late as 1900, camels were occasionally hunted, sighted, and shot in Arizona.
Thus ended a romantic chapter in the history of our early West, in which our Navy played an instigative and leading part.