Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1934-01-18
CAMEL TEST IN 1856
RECALLED IN TEXAS
Daughters of Confederacy
Mark Site With Plaque.


and still sparsely settled section Of
Kerr county, Texas, stands an old
stone. ranch house, in the shadow of
which a simple ceremony recently re-
viyed an almost forgotten chapter In
the military and economic history of
the United States.
The old ranch house was not always
such. Once it was the officers head.
quarters building at Camp Verde. an
important military post on the Texas
frontier. Reputedly laid out by Rob-
ert e. Lee, later commander in chief
of the Confederate army, but then a
United States colonel of cavalry in
Texas. Camp Verde became famous as
the home of the government camel
herd imported from the Levant during
the administration Of Jefferson Davis
as United States secretary of war.
Crumbling ruins of the camel
"khan," or pen, part of whose 'dobe
walls were sixteen feet high, remain
near the ranch house as evidence Of
the experimental use of bumped beasts
from the Near East in American mill
tary and commercial transport.
Dedicate Plaque.
In the recent ceremony the United
Daughters of the Confederacy, d.
vision Of Texas, dedicated a bronze
marker concentrating what Is left of
Camp Verde, whose hallowed walls
are linked with the past presence of
such men as the illustrious Lee and
Albert Sidney Johnston.
History records that Camp Verde, or
Fort Verde, as it also was called, was
established as military post on July
3, 1855. 1t is sixty-five miles north
west of San Antonio. Is.
The old fort was captured BY Con-
federate troops on February %, 1861.
AS quoted in Texas Camel Tales"
written by Chris Emmett Of San An
tonic, Lieutenant Hill Of the Con-
federate forces reported that among
other things captured at the post were
eighty camels and two Egyptian
drivers" Jefferson Davis, when secre-
tary of war in 1855. obtained a $4,000
congressional appropriation for the
camels, and Maj. Henry Constantine
Wayne, who went to the Levant for
the animals, brought the first ship
load via old Powder Horn (Indianola),
Texas.
rs Were Imported.
The first cargo of thirty-four camels
-seventy-five were imported in two
shipments-was unloaded on May Is,
1855, at Indianola, the Texas port
which long ago was swept away by a
gulf storm.
Although employment of the army
camels actually included use in the
pursuit of Indians, their outstanding
uses were in Lieut.. w. 81. Echols'
reconnaissance of the Texas Big Bend
section (near the Rio Grande) with
a camel train in 1860 and, prior to
that, Lieut.. E. F. Beale's camel ex-
petition to California in 1857 to sur.
vey the Great Wagon Road" over a
southern route. :: Incidentally, the
Southern Pacific railroad later was
built practically along that route, and
the advance Of the steam locomotive
was one of the developments that dis
couraged continuance and extension
OF camel transport. But during the
Civil war camels carried Confederate
cotton-two bales to the camel-to the
Mexican border at Brownsville. re-
turning with salt from salt lakes near
the Gulf coast.
After the war private owners ac-
quired the government camels, Bethel
Coopwood buying sixty-six at $31 a
head at San Antonio in 1866. Use of
the animals In private transportation
enterprises, however, did not prove
profitable. Eventually many of the
camels found their way to circuses;
others strayed of or were turned loose.