A strange tombstone in Vicksburg
If you wander about Vicksburg’s Cedar Hill cemetery, you will come across a marker with a camel on it, or more appropriately, a dromedary. This is more than just an interesting image, for it actually remember a veteran of the U.S. Camel Corps who switched sides in the Civil War.
The USCC was a prewar experiment by the U.S. Army, suggested by then-Secretary of War Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, to test the use of camels and dromedaries brought from North Africa to forts in Texas where the cavalry would see if they were of any use in the New World. Congress chipped in $30,000, about $800k in today’s money, as they are always good for a few lumps (humps?) for far-out ideas and dispatched the warship USS Supply, (with one Lt. David Dixon Porter aboard, later to be a Civil War Admiral) to the Med, in search of some goofy critters.
Dixon brought back 33 beasts and five native camel drivers in 1856, then went back for another 41. Well these 70-odd animals turned out to be a nightmare in service and, with the exception of Beale’s survey to the Colorado River, were not well-loved.
When the Civil War broke out and the U.S. garrisons in Texas were abandoned (with no help from Pascagoula, Mississippi-native Gen. Twiggs), the camels were liquidated. Some went to British Columbia Others made a break for it and survived in the deserts of the American Southwest as late as 1893 (where one of the drivers, Hadji Ali, whose name was mispronounced as “Hi Jolly,” is remembered in an extensive grave marker in Arizona).
Grave of Hadji “Hi Jolly” Ali (1828 — December 16, 1902), a Greek-Syrian specialist who was one of the first camel drivers ever hired by US Army in 1856 to lead the camel driver experiment in the Southwest. Located in Quartzsite, Arizona. Photo by Jeremy Butler
All of this brings us to Douglas, the camel remembered in Vicksburg.
It seems that this hardy dromedary was furloughed from the U.S. Army, and became the possession of one 1Lt.William H. Hargrove by means unknown. In the Spring of 1862, Hargrove joined Frank Rodger’s Rifles in Monroe County, which was later mustered as Company A of what became the 43rd Mississippi Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and brought Douglas the camel with him into service.
“His keeper would chain him to keep him from wandering off, but Douglas would sit back and snap any kind of chain, then proceed to graze at leisure, though never leaving the regiment or interfering with anything that did not interrupt him. When the regiment was ready to start, Douglas would be led up to the pile of things he was to carry, and his leader would say, ‘Pushay, Douglas,’ and he would gracefully drop to his knees and haunches and remain so till his load was adjusted and he was told to get up. His long, swinging gait was soon familiar with the entire command, and ours was called the ‘Camel Regiment.”
Old Doug was assigned to the regimental band (to carry instruments, not play them) and served with the regiment at Iuka, Corinth and Vicksburg. It was during the siege of that strategic river city that Douglas was picked off by Yankee snipers (have you ever seen how tall a camel is?). Although morning his loss, the hungry soldiers ate poor Douglas and later the Bluecoats collected his bones as souvenirs.
He is, however, remembered in the marker at Cedar Hill.
The antebellum experiment was portrayed in the mildly entertaining 1976 western Hawmps!
