Camel Corps Returns to El Morro

from Gallup Journey Magazine - September 2022

We are being Guided Richard Rhor

NPS Photo: Camel Corps expert Doug Baum brings living history (complete with live camels) to El Morro to recreate the expedition of 1857.

Camel Corps Returns to

By Julianna Ellis, Park Guide El Morro National Monument

Through the efforts of the National Park Service and the sponsorship of Western National Parks Association, El Morro National Monument is bringing back to life the United States Camel Corps.

In 1857, one of the strangest expeditions ever passed by the towering cliff face of El Morro. Mounted and packed to the fullest, a caravan of camels marched forward over a long and difficult path.

The camel experiment, dubbed by many as the “United States Camel Corps”, passed through western New Mexico and El Morro in the fall of 1857 on their way to California. Led by the experienced Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale, the expedition was looking to survey a new route through the west and at the same time test the use of camels as pack animals in the desert. At the time western travel was sluggish, dangerous, and unpredictable. In 1855, the government took action and appropriated funds for the experiment. Over the next two years, the USS Supply successfully brought 75 camels to America from overseas, traversing the Atlantic Ocean not once but twice. Once the camels arrived on American soil their mission was far from complete. Throughout the next two years, these camels would be tested and pushed to their limits in some of the most inhospitable lands in North America.

The “ships of the desert”, as they were called, proved to be the real deal. Initial speculation was all but forgotten after several months in the wilderness. Lt. Beale was so impressed by the camels he declared that “the harder the test they are put to the more fully they seem to justify all that can be said of them.” The expedition found that the camels “were capable of packing one thousand pounds apiece and of traveling with their load from thirty to forty miles per day all the while finding their own feed over an almost barren country.”

Along with the camels came drovers who knew how to care for them. Vibrant and charismatic, these men, like the camels, faced similar challenges in a foreign land. Some of these names still live on in legend, like the very colorful Hadji Ali, known better by his counterparts as “Hi

NPS Photo: A camel takes a well-deserved break under the cliffs of El Morro. The camels used by the Camel Corps would have carried as much as a thousand pounds!

El Morro National Monument

Jolly.” These men were essential to the success of the expedition and kept the crew in cheerful spirits.

The caravan charted a route that would later become Highway 53. They passed El Morro and the Pueblo of Zuni. What a curious sight these camels must have been to the natives, who from the rooftops watched as they passed through the valley. As the expedition marched onward into Arizona, the camels continued to persevere through the unforgiving desert country. Finally arriving at their destination near Los Angeles on November 10th, 1857, the camels were welcomed on the dusty streets by a crowd of curious faces.

Having achieved their goal with high praise, the “ships of the desert” proved to be both effective and adaptive in North America. However, fate would have it that the widespread use of camels would never come to fruition. With the onset of the Civil War and the expansion of railroads west, the allure of the camel became less and less. The government finally abandoned the experiment, eventually selling the camels to various buyers at a loss. The camel mystique, however, lived on for some time, with sightings of wild camels in the Southwest as late as the 1930s. For many Americans today, the camel experiment is nothing more than a mirage on the horizon of history, fading slowly into the ambiguity of the past.

This September El Morro National Monument is bringing back to life the history of the “United States Camel Corps.” The Camel Corps Commemoration will take place at El Morro National Monument on Saturday, September 10th and Sunday, September 11st. Gates to the monument will open at 9:00 a.m. From 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., presentations on camels will be offered throughout the day including historical reenactments by camel expert Doug Baum and educational programs by park rangers. Visitors will also have the special opportunity to see camels up close. For more information, please call El Morro Visitor Center at 505-783-4226 ext. 801 or visit us online at www.nps. gov/elmo or https://www.facebook.com/elmorro.nps. Come celebrate a day long ago, when camels walked past El Morro and into the pages of history.

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