THE CAMEL AND THE CORPS:  Lieutenant William H. Echols's Reconnaissance of West Texas

Camels crossing a West Texas stream.  From a painting by a soldier who may have been with the Echols or Hartz expeditions.

The deeper one delves into the history of the Corps, the more one is amazed by the variety and scope of the Engineers' experiences.  An old motion picture calls to mind one unusual and little-known episode, the short-lived experiment with camels.  The movie "Hawmps" is a comedy, but testing the dromedaries, imported at the behest of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis for use on the frontier, was no laughing matter to Engineer Lieutenant William H. Echols.

Fresh out of the Military Academy in 1858, Echols led two reconnaissances through rugged, arid portions of Colonel Robert E. Lee's Department of Texas.  With his supplies lashed to the backs of camels, Echols pushed into the Big Bend wilderness.  Soldiers hated the hump-backs – they groaned, bit, spat, and stank – but Echols respected their toughness.  "No such march as this," he wrote near Fort Davis, "could be made with any security without them."  His efforts, among the earliest field tests of the camels, were nullified when the onset of the Civil War shifted attention from the frontier.  The camels were turned loose to run wild, and Echols returned to tamer pursuits. Unsung and unknown, this young Engineer played a central part in one of the more novel chapters of the Corps' complex history.

Frank N. Schubert, Historical Vignettes (U.S. Government Printing Office), p. 77.