Rare How-To's

Before Jefferson Davis shocked his fellow congressmen by becoming the first President of the Confederate States of America in 1861, he shocked them ten years earlier, when he suggested that the “American Army should enlarge its inventory of livestock to include—camels.” He added that “For military purposes…it is believed the dromedary would supply a want now seriously felt in our service….” The suggestion was mostly laughed away, until, five years later, while Davis was Secretary of War, Congress approved a mission to the Middle East to purchase a small starter heard of the beasts. The mission succeeded; they returned with 34 camels, many of which were put to use taking supplies through the New Mexico Territory. To read more about the camels and their fate, I suggest Camels for Uncle Sam by Diance Yancey.

This post, however, is not about the camels themselves, but about how the team of experts, who were tasked with the mission to buy them and who did not include a single member who had actually ridden a camel, were hoodwinked by camel traders. The first one offered them, the team bought. “It turned out to be an ailing beast covered with sores and infected with mange, known as the ‘camel’s itch.’” Besides ignorance, one difficulty in buying camels was a trick used by sellers to conceal the real health of the animal: “A camel’s hump gave a clue to its health, and…underhanded traders sometimes inserted a tube and blew air under the skin until the hump looked firm.”

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