Ali the camel was drafted into the United States Camel Corps
and shipped to Texas in 1856. His adventures in the American desert are told
from his point of view. A second shipment of camels arrived in 1857, and the
Army hoped that the camels would be more useful in the southwestern desert than
horses or mules.
Ali was fond of the Arab camel handler that accompanied
them from Egypt. They were under the command of Major Edward Beale, who had a
favorite camel, Seid. The outbreak of the Civil War ended the experiment and
the expansion of the railroad lessened the need for camels. The camels were
sold to mines and circuses, others escaped and were set free. Camels were
sighted in the southwest until the late 1920s. Beale’s camel Seid is in the
Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
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