Far West Texas is a land of juxtapositions, both purposeful and not: a Prada store in the middle of the desert; a surveillance blimp, floating among the clouds; and, a couple of weeks ago, two camels at the Fort Davis National Historic Site, their humps mimicking the rise and fall of the Davis Mountains beyond.
This was a historical reenactment of sorts, a scene transported directly from the late 1800s, where camels really did roam the American Southwest, from Texas through California. A tent was set up on the fort’s lawn, and a man sat in front of it on a barrel, dressed in old military garb with a camel on either side of him. The man’s name was Doug Baum – the self-appointed keeper of the history of the Camel Corps. The camels’ names were Jadid and Daleel.
I walked over to Doug, unsure of the level of his commitment to the historical bit – would he talk to me in 1800s parlance? The answer was no. While his outfit was somewhere back in the 1850s, he was in the present, and somehow, reading my mind:
“ I think most Americans probably look at a camel, and they don't know they're doing this, but they look at it and they're trying to make it be a horse. It's their point of reference.”
I realized I was indeed imposing the idea of a horse. Having never seen a camel in real life before, my brain was unsure how to process such an enormous and intimidating creature. The camels were a lot taller than any horse I’d seen, their necks longer and sloping.
Doug is a former zookeeper and the founder of The Texas Camel Corps, a business “totally devoted to keeping the history alive of the 19th century US Army Camel Experiment.” The TCC travels around to various historical sites giving reenactments and educating the public about this fascinating — and short-lived — piece of US military history.
I knew the loose contours of this story from a Rambling Boy piece by the late great Lonn Taylor. Doug gave me a refresher on the details. He told me that the camel experiment was dreamed up by Jefferson Davis (the namesake of Jeff Davis County, and disgraced president of the Confederacy).
Back in the mid-1800s, on the heels of the Gold Rush, just before the Civil War, people were moving west. There were promises of farmland, gold, and whatever wealth might come with that. But it wasn’t an easy journey to make – the terrain was rugged and unforgiving.
“People died, livestock died,” Doug told me. “If you cross the northern part of our country, well, there are a lot of mountains there. It's really difficult that way. A lot of folks lobbied for a southern route, but that means going through the desert, so it's hot and dry. It was kicked around from the 1830s into the 1850s, [people thought] why not bring in camels?”
Camels, the government figured, could withstand the heat and terrain of the Southwest. At last, in the 1850s, legislation was passed to bring some camels over from the Middle East and North Africa. The US sent over a ship, funded in part by Jefferson Davis himself, and like Noah’s Ark (if instead of all God’s creatures it carried only…camels), they rode across the seas and landed here in Texas.
“Seventy five camels ultimately land on the Gulf Coast of Texas and become part of the US military,” Doug said. “Their job is to carry water. Each camel would carry two 30-gallon kegs. They weigh about 600 pounds total.”
The experiment actually worked — the camels became another tool in the pursuit of Westward Expansion. Doug told me that back in the 1850s, the camels had actually come here to Fort Davis, passing through for a few nights here and there on their journey. He estimated they’d spent a total of 10-12 nights while traversing the region.
“As somebody who likes to keep history alive, when I'm here, you know, minus a gal sticking a microphone in my face, it's 1857, you're transported,” said Doug. “ If you're looking west into the Davis Mountains from here, there's nothing that really tells you it's the 21st century. I don't see power lines as I look beyond, officer's row. I don't see a lot of airplanes.”
Learning the history and looking at the land and the camels in front of me, it started to seem less odd. More plausible.
But then – the Civil War stopped much of the migration that had started in previous decades, and the camels became, in Doug’s words, a “political casualty,” due to their association with Jefferson Davis.
”Anything that Davis had his fingers in was pretty much scuttled,” Doug told me. After the experiment officially ended, the remaining camels were scattered: a couple dozen went to work in the Sierra Nevadas, hauling salt for silver refinement. One guy in Laredo bought some and started a kind of proto-FedEx, clomping across the desert, delivering packages by camel.
I couldn’t help asking Doug the question that had been on my mind since I’d spotted the camels: what is the difference between a camel and a horse, besides the obvious physical ones?
“They're such different animals,” Doug said, gazing at his camels. “The things that motivate a horse tends to be fear of a predator essentially.” He explained that you get a horse to move the way you want it to by convincing there’s a predator behind it.
“Camels tend not to have predators, so you can't use those same types of encouragement or motivations to get 'em to move,” said Doug. “I think the partnership becomes even deeper because you've somehow gotta convince this 1500 pound animal that going that way is better than where we are. There must be something better down the line.”
Standing in the middle of the historic site with a man dressed in antique clothing, I was struck by the idea of optimism as a motivator – not a fear of what’s behind you, but a desire to seek out the good that’s up ahead. I need a piece of that.
“ What have you learned from the camels?” I asked.
“This is an easy answer,” Doug said. “Camels have taught me, and most, certainly more in my advancing years, patience. You can't push a camel, you can't make a 1,200, 1,500 pound camel do anything they don't want to do.”
Doug offered to play me an old army song before I left – we shuffled over to his historically accurate tent, and he picked up a guitar. The usual bugle horns and fort reenactment noises ceased for a moment, and the smattering of Fort visitors quieted as he played Old Kentucky Home. Even the camels seemed soothed by the song.
