May 26, 2014 • 29 mins
In 1883, a mysterious beast was spotted in Arizona and trampled a woman. First described a a demon, the creature turned out to be a camel. But what was it doing in the American Southwest in the first place? Read the show notes here.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly from I'm Tray Stevie Wilson uh and today's
topic is one we've actually been asked about a couple
of times. It's another one that's also been on my
(00:21):
list for a long time. I'm kind of trying to
go back to the ones that I wrote down when
we first moved on to the podcast as host, that
I was really excited about and then they get lost
in the shuffle. You know what happened to mine? What
we moved offices in my my white park, got to
raise the white board with my stuff on I got
a raise. Yeah. So yeah, I'm going back to some
of those because I always intended to do them. And
(00:42):
this one is a little bit of a ghost story.
It's got a little bit of US military history, and
it also featured animals, so it's kind of a wacky
mixed bag in terms of topics. And I decided to
kind of back off of doing much of an intro
on it because I kind of love the oddness of
the story and I want listeners to sort of hear
how it plays out. Like there's an explanation of what
(01:05):
initially seems supernatural to some people. UM, so we're just
gonna kind of set the scene and then kind of
explain what was really going on and how that came
to be. Uh. So it starts in three uh and
at this point a mysterious beast was spotted in Arizona.
This is the first time that this particular one is spotted. Uh.
(01:29):
And most of this story at the beginning, I should say,
is all reported by the Mojave County Miner, which was
a small newspaper. Uh. And I didn't have access to
those particular ones. I have it written as relayed by
another researcher, So just heads up on that. So in
three there were these two women who were home with
(01:49):
their children while the men of the family were away
tending their sheep flock. And they had had some issues
with Native Americans and sheep issues uh that are not
really made to the story. But so uh, while the
men were away and these two women were at home
alone with the children, they had an encounter which would
unfortunately prove fatal for one of them. So, according to
(02:10):
the legend, shortly after one of the women left the
house on Eagle Creek to go get some water. The
dogs started barking, and that prompted the other woman to
go to the window and see what was going on.
And what she saw she described as an enormous red
beast ridden by the devil. Uh She heard screams, but
(02:32):
because she was too terrified to leave the house, she
just kind of barricaded the door. She is said to
have kind of frantically said prayers the rest of the
time until the men returned. So when the men came
home and heard her story, they immediately mounted a search
party for the other woman who had gone out to
get water, but they didn't get far because they found
(02:54):
her nearby trampled to death. And because this was sort
of a mysterious death, there was some suspicion initially by
the um the authorities that examined the body, that maybe
she had been murdered by someone in the family, even
though the condition of the body was obviously very unique
in that it had been trampled h There was an inquest,
(03:16):
but in the end the verdict in the investigation was
reported in the local paper, the Mojabbi County Miner that
I mentioned as quote death in some manner unknown. So
just a few days after that, and a few miles
northeast of the first sighting, two prospectors woke up in
the night when their tent was crushed. They returned to
their mining camp in or Arizona with tales of this
(03:39):
impossibly tall horse. When a party made its way back
to the trampled camp, they found red hairs and large
hoofprints in the area. And naturally, this on top of
the uh, the woman having been killed in this sort
of mysterious way, uh really sort of started this, you know,
cultural moment on that is very natural of tall tales
(04:02):
and gossip about what started to be called the red Ghost.
And some of the people talking about it claimed that
they had seen and even pursued the red ghost. One
said he saw it vanish into thin air before his eyes,
So they really were laying on the supernatural abilities at
this point. About a month after the death of the
woman at Eagle Creek, a rancher named Cyrus Hamblin was
(04:24):
out getting stray cattle, kind of rounding them up when
he spotted the beasts near the Salt River. And this
was eighty miles northeast of the earlier sidings. And unlike
previous encounters, he knew what it was. It was a camel, Yeah,
he uh. It was not entirely unheard of for camels
to be in this area. Unusual, but not unheard of. Uh.
(04:49):
And Hamblin could see that there was also some sort
of load that was strapped to the animals back, but
he couldn't get close enough to catch the camel or
identify what that was on his back, but he said
that he believed that it looked like a deceased man,
and eventually the camel escaped him. Hamblin's word on the
matter solidified this whole story of the Red Ghost, which
(05:10):
people also called the Fantasia Colorado. That was what the
Spanish speaking settlers of the area primarily called it. The
rancher was was well respected and his tail was not
really embellished. He didn't put a lot of, you know,
crazy spin on it. He didn't throw in any supernatural
or fantastical elements, except for the part that there was
(05:31):
probably a dead man on the creature's back, which some
people were kind of skeptical about. Yeah, but he was
very matter of fact about it, like, I think there's
a dead guy on the back of that camel, which
is a phrase you'd never think you're gonna say, but
there you go. Uh. So, several weeks after Hamlin's incident,
this time about sixty miles to the west of where
(05:52):
Hamblin had had his encounter, another group of prospectors spotted
what was believed to be the same animal, this at
this point having been still believed by some people to
be supernatural and others to be like, no, no, it's camel. Uh.
They thought that the best course of action was just
to start firing wildly at it, and they didn't actually
hit it, however, or if they did, they merely grazed it.
(06:14):
But as it ran for its life, the burden that
was on its back because there was something on its back, dislodged,
and the prospectors, once the camel had gone, advanced on
this fallen cargo, and what they actually discovered was in
fact a human skull with some hair and a very
few shreds of decomposed skin still clinging to it. And
(06:35):
so in this moment, Cyrus Hamblin's story was completely corroborated
by this rather grizzly discovery, so it once again supported no, no,
he is really a stand up guy that doesn't talk crazy.
There is a dead guy on that camel's back in
so ten years after the first sightings of the Red Ghost,
a man by the name of Missoo Hastings found a
(06:58):
red camel eating in his garden or Arizona, and this
time he shot it dead. The camel had straps of
leather still tied to it, and in some places the
straps had cut into its flesh. This residual strap work
led people to conclude that this was the same camel
that had been running around the area with a corpse
strap to it for the last ten years. Yeah, the
(07:19):
corpse wasn't actually there the whole time, but it was
a very intricate, like a netting almost of these straps.
So he had been wearing those straps and presumably pieces
of this deceased person for quite some time. But who
the dead man was remains something of a mystery. I
read your note is where the dead man was remained
something of a mystery, And I'm like, scattered around the
(07:41):
dwell bea that part we know or we'd presume. Uh.
And in the years between the time that the skull
had been picked up and when Missoo hastings had killed
the Red ghosts uh, and there had been other sightings
during that time, But there had also been a lot
of speculation that perhaps the corpse had been a man
who had strapped himself onto the camel when he was
(08:04):
thirsty and near death, hoping that the animal was going
to eventually lead him to water. It didn't work, apparently,
well they've realized that wasn't really what happened. Well, once
the felled camel and its straps had been examined, though,
it was apparent that they could not have been tied
by a man, the man who was writing, and this
conclusion led the Mohave County Minor to say this, the
(08:26):
only question is whether the man was tied on for
revenge or merely as an ugly piece of humor by
someone who had a camel and a corpse for which
he had no use. Yeah, so there's it's never really
been uh solved one way or the other. In addition
to who it was, but whether he had been alive
or dead when he had been strapped to the camel.
So the mystery of the Red Ghost was dissolved at
(08:50):
that point as it was ever going to be. Uh. However,
that leads us to the next part of the episode,
which is why a camel was wandering around the American
Southwest in the first place. And before we get to that,
we're gonna have a word from our sponsor, and now
we will hop back to Arizona. So the introduction of
(09:10):
camels into the US was actually a military function, and
it actually took two decades from the time the first
studies were conducted about this idea to the actual introduction
of camels into the American Southwest. It all started in
eighteen thirty six when E. F. Miller Esquire conducted a
camel study and wrote a letter detailing his findings to
(09:32):
the U S. Quartermaster Captain George H. Craftsman of Georgia
and UH in the spring of eighteen forty three. So
it still some years later. U. S. Quartermaster General Thomas S.
Jessup received a letter from Crossman extolling the potential virtues
of camels as pack animals for use in military service.
(09:53):
Crossman characterized camels as imposing and being potentially intimidating to
the horses favored by Native American so they felt that
they would have the upper hand in any dealings UH
with natives and camels had also, you know, after all,
been part of various militaries throughout world history, and Crossman
cited Miller's research as a source of validation for all
(10:14):
his assertions about how great camels could be for the service.
This is because the discworld books didn't exist yet. We're
not we need to find a time machine and then
handed off to them and they don't pull any punches
about how terrible camels can be to work with. Crossman
also discussed using camels in the army with the Quartermaster
(10:36):
Henry Wayne, who was very interested in the idea, and
then in eighteen forty eight, so this is still all
percolating along via years and years and years, Henry Wayne
went to the War departments with this idea, and though
that had already taken quite some time, it was actually
another six years before the concept of introducing camels into
military service in the US took another significant step. That
(11:00):
was in eighteen fifty four when Jefferson Davis, the Secretary
of War, made a report to the Senate proposing the
introduction of camels into army use. And in addition to
the previous missives that promoted the use of camels, Davis
had also been influenced by naval officer Edward Fitzgerald Beale.
Bale had read the writing of ever East our Hook,
(11:22):
a French missionary who penned a travel diary called Recollections
of a Journey through Tartari, Tibet and China during the
years eighteen and eighteen forty six. He was really taken
with the accounts of camels in this work, and he
shared his very enthusiastic point of view on the topic
with anyone who would listen, including Jefferson Davis. And the
(11:47):
timing of this at this point was good because of
the increasing burden that the US was facing in the
Southwest at the time. So Davis's idea really was met
with some enthusiasm, and this was because there was a
growing need both for transportation of troops as well as
for moving heavy loads of supplies. So this is, you know,
mid eighteen hundreds, when we are slowly pushing out to
(12:07):
the west and things are being built, uh, and the
ability of camels to survive in conditions similar to those
in the desert areas of the Southwest started to make
them look like a pretty appealing solution to the problems.
So In early eighteen fifty five, Davis was granted a
budget of thirty thousand dollars to start working on a
camel corps. He immediately sent Henry Wayne to the eastern
(12:28):
Mediterranean to find suitable camels to buy. And Wayne was
joined in this mission by Navy Lieutenant David Dixon Porter,
who was actually a relative of Beal. And the two
men did not make a direct route through the Mediterranean
too like Camel Country, they actually stopped at many places
along the way. UH. They stopped throughout Europe. They interviewed
(12:49):
camel experts and got their opinions. They talked to zoologists,
They visited with royals who owned camels as part of
their menageries. UH. And they also made several stops around
the mediterrane in like they visited Tunis, they visited Malta,
and in some of these places they would purchase stock
if they found it suitable. UH. They also, while they
were doing all this stuff, dropped off Wayne's son at
(13:10):
a French boarding school, where the boys stayed for several years.
He did not finish the camel travel. While you're in France,
why don't you go to school for a while On
February eighteen fifty six, Wayne and Porter started their journey
back to the US aboard the U. S. S. Supply
and they were traveling with thirty three camels. This was
(13:31):
a mix of Arabian bactory and Tunis and two Lue
camels along with five handlers. This group landed at Indian
on the Texas on May fourteenth, and that's where the
camels were offloaded from the U. S. S. Supply and
then they began marching uh Tutor destination which was Camp
very day, and they got to Camp very day on
(13:51):
August that same year. In eighteen fifty seven, Porter made
the journey to the Eastern Mediterranean again bringing back forty
one more camels. Also in eighteen fifty seven, Beal took
one of the camel handlers who was named Hadji Ali,
who you will also see him listed in historical references
high Jolly, because apparently Americans that could not quite manage
(14:14):
his name nicknamed him that. See my my expression of
being rather nonplus. Yeah, he didn't apparently seem terribly concerned
with it. Um. But they all went on a survey
expedition which had been ordered by President James Buchanan, and
this team was tasked with building a wagon road from
Fort Defiance, New Mexico, to the Colorado River, and they
(14:37):
took twenty five camels with them on this assignment so
that they could test out the beasts, and it turned
out that the camels did a really good job. Side note,
this wagon trail also marked the travel path that would
eventually become the legendary Root sixty six. Yeah, first found
by camels. Yeah. My my friends Natan Carey drove the
(14:57):
entire length of that as a summer make Asian last summer.
I have friends that moved out to Los Angeles last
year and they did a similar thing on the way.
I think it's an awesome fun thing, have road trip time,
having the witnessed other people doing it. Yeah, I'm kind
of like, let's get to the destination already, not be
in the car all day, But that's me. Uh. It
(15:17):
turned out that these camels could easily carry three hundred
pounds and they could travel for four miles an hour,
which doesn't sound terribly fast, but compared to other options,
they did quite well, especially considering their heavy cargo with
very few stops, so they could just kind of go
all day long. Uh. And they didn't really need to
have provisions for their meals carried along because they were
(15:39):
able to grade on the cedar and the creasote bush
that were plentiful along the route and which other pack
animals could not eat. Uh And the camels were also
able to outlast other pack animals on difficult journeys, so
in some cases when they had brought other animals along,
they would have to abandon them because they could not
hack the conditions, whereas the camels could just keep going.
That's terrible, it is. This one's a little off for
(16:00):
the animal lover in me. Henry Wayne in particular, really
championed the camel's usefulness. According to one story, after hearing
remarks about the camel's not being impressive as pack animals,
he had one of his camels loaded with four hay bales,
which totaled more than a thousand pounds, to just show
off how strong it was. Yeah, again, the animal lover
and me struggles with a little bit of the story.
(16:21):
Um like, that's kind of abusive, but uh so, initially,
you know, at this point, the Camel Corps looked like
it was going to be a success because they were
doing very well in the desert conditions, they could carry loads.
They could outlast mules and horses no problem. But of
course that is not the whole story. If you've ever
ever seen a book with a camel in it, or
(16:42):
maybe just like seeing a picture of a camel, you've
ever seen a camel, you're right. Even if it's been
like a far away glimpse of a camel, you can
probably grasp that they have tempers. Yeah, I mean, that's
what they're known for. When I think most people if
they just do a quick like association and someone says camel,
you think, oh my goodness, they're gonna spit and trample me. Yep.
That has proved to be a problem. They could be
(17:04):
very difficult, and they sometimes completely disregarded their handlers. They
would growl at soldiers as they approached with loads that
they were going to like on onto them. Oh and
also cammell smell pretty bad. Yeah uh, and I'm sure
they probably weren't getting washed very regularly. I'm just imagining
(17:24):
what effort it would take to wash a camel at
this point in history. Yeah, a lot. It would take
a lot of effort. Couldn't just pull out a hose, no,
I mean you there, Oh, natural probably buckets maybe hope. Uh.
And that smell is actually part of the reason. Uh.
(17:46):
It's attributed to part of the reason why they spooked
the horses. And as you recall, this had been a
selling point for the camel Corps when it came to
the horses the Native Americans used. But this was a
huge problem when they were horses that were being used
by the same US troops that were also employing the camels,
and they had to deal with this interspecies problem. So
(18:08):
the horses were not delighted by the camel's presence. They
would get very scared. And keep in mind, these are
large animals, so when one is angry and one is spooked,
you can imagine how difficult it is to sort of
corral that, and then multiply that by the many that
we're traveling together. That could be deadly. Uh. And it's
probably understandable that many of the soldiers openly complained about
(18:30):
the situation. UH. And even General David Twiggs, who commanded
Texas and thus was a very powerful man in the military,
he made it pretty clear that he would just rather
have mules and could we please not deal with these
camels so as the Civil War, mounted Confederate troops took
Camp bear Day in February of eighteen sixty one, and
so while the camels had proven their usefulness, they still
(18:53):
were not a standard part of military operations. This is
still considered an experimental concept and they hadn't really been
planned for as part of the Confederate war effort. So
the animals then were, you know, there at Camp fair Day,
and they were used and sometimes abused again a little
difficult for the animal lover, uh, in a variety of
(19:14):
sometimes kind of odd ways. Some were used for just
transporting goods and freight, just like they had been prior
to eighteen sixty one. Some were used for entertainment rides,
and some were sent around to other bases. One was
allegedly pushed off a cliff by Confederate soldiers because they
found it bothersome and they didn't want to take care
of it. And some were just neglected or set loose. Yeah,
(19:37):
I mean, my heart breaks at the thought of an
animal being en off a cliff or even just abandoned
or neglected. At the same time, just from the point
of view of like someone in that situation, I can
imagine that there is an element of I don't know
what to do with these things, and there is a
herd of them at this camp, uh, and they just
didn't know how to deal with them. We should also
(20:00):
mentioned that while being set loose in some cases may
have seemed like a kindness, we should note that these
animals had been bred in domestication. I mean, they were
bred as stock. They weren't like wild camels that have
been cotton tamed, so they had never been wild, and
fending for themselves in the brush, even though they were physiologically,
you know, pretty well suited to the environment, was likely
(20:21):
a very stressful situation. And additionally, when prospectors or cowhands
would encounter these animals that have been set free just wandering,
they kind of viewed them as target practice. So they
were really treated very poorly and inhumanly. Union troops took
Camp very back in eighteen sixty five, but reconstruction resulted
(20:43):
in a diversion of funds away from the camel corps,
and as the railroad system was built farther and farther west,
you know, the camels had been helping to run supplies
for a lot of the construction. The need for the
camels just evaporated, and in eighteen sixty six most of
the remaining camels when camp very toy had been taken
back or sold at auction in New Orleans, Louisiana, and
(21:05):
also in Benicia, California. And these were sold at significant loss. Uh.
Some were purchased by circuses, carnivals or zoos. Some were
likely sold to be used as meat. Some were purchased
by like just private people who were like, I have money,
I'll buy a camel, and then they often turned around
and resold them for a much higher rate. They were,
in essence camel flippers. Camel flippers. Yeah, so today there
(21:30):
are camel core reenactors who keep a small number of
camels for education purposes. There's a comedy film made about
the whole thing in the seventies, and there's even a
children's book about it. There's also a memorial to the
camel core at the final resting site of the camel
handler Hagia l E in Quartzite, Arizona, and it's kind
of a pyramid shaped a little memorial that stands there
(21:55):
in references both Higil's work as well as just the
camel coret itself. Because he stayed in the US even
after his need his work as a camel handler was done.
While the Red Ghost was felled in camel sidings continued
in Arizona, California, and Mexico well into the twentieth century.
Even in the nineteen fifties there were people who claimed
(22:17):
that there were still camels in Sonora and Baja California. Yeah.
Completely random species introduced, and we're allegedly, you know, kind
of surviving in the desert for a long time, some
being very elderly, I'm sure, and others possibly having made
it and had their own little camel families. I am
(22:38):
going to say that I am relieved that it was
not more like the introduction of kadzoo. I mean, can
you imagine if camels overran the Southwest the way rabbits
overran Australia. I thought about that as I was doing this,
I was like, I guess camels didn't do so well
in the hole propagating and and sort of you know,
(23:00):
a huge blow up of population, which is good. I
still feel very bad for the camels because they can't
get past that. Uh. And it's interesting. You'll here's some
nice or read when you're looking at research about this. Uh,
there are historians who like to theorize what would have
happened if we hadn't completely abandoned the camel core experiment,
because it did seem like it had some uh fairly
(23:22):
you know, positive aspects to it, even though the camels
tended to be grumpy and problematic. You know, some like
to wonder what had happened if the Union Army had
incorporated them into regular service after they had taken back
camp ver day. And we'll never know, of course, but
we do know that they could survive on their own
in the desert for decades. Uh. So, you know, on
the off chance here in the Southwest it's the a
(23:44):
random camel probably related to those. There haven't been sightings
in decades, so I would be shocked. But unless some
ridiculous wealthy person purchased this one as a pet and
that sets it free because they're fool, it's probably not
going to happen. But that is the camel core. And
that's one of those things that um because it involves
(24:07):
so many moving parts and names that are also connected
to other aspects of the Civil War, you know, it
can quickly blossom out into a very huge and long thing,
and we may eventually cover other parts of this story
that kind of interlock. But that's the scoop on why
there was a camel running around looking like a devil, uh,
killing people with a corpse. Yeah, and it kind of
(24:28):
explains when you think about that, why that camel seemed
to be pretty aggressive towards humans. It had clearly been
treated badly. Someone had strapped a person to it and
send it off. It was carrying something around, uh that
was tied tightly enough to be cutting into its flesh,
so it probably was very grumpy. Did not associate humans
(24:48):
with good things. Uh, that's scoop. Do you have some
listener mail for us? I do, And it's such a
dear change from camels, it will evolve no animal talk whatsoever. Uh.
It is from our listener, Allison, and she says, Um,
I am a cartoonist who loves history, so I love
being able to listen. So being able to listen all
I draw is wonderful. I'm ready to ask for advice,
(25:09):
possibly for both of you, but perhaps mostly Holly, as
I know of her passion for historical clothing. I want
to make a comic about the history of underwear. Okay,
my aside, Allison, I just fell a little bit in
love with you. Of course, she says. The first thing
I did was to search your archives, and I was
so happy to find the episode about that exact topic.
I really enjoyed it, and it piqued my interest even more.
(25:30):
I'm looking for suggestions for books, websites, and anything else
you might think would be helpful. I don't know much
about the history of clothing in general, so I have
a lot of research ahead of me, so any guidance
is welcome. Uh oh, I'm so happy to suggest my
two favorite books and one other thing. Um. The first
is one called Course. It's in crinolines. It's written by
a woman named Nora Waw. It's kind of considered the
(25:53):
gold standard of underwear history. I will tell you this.
It's laid out a little bit oddly in terms of
how the chapters are sectioned, but once you kind of
get the hang of the structure of it, it all
makes a lot of sense. And it's a pretty comprehensive history.
Have you ever encountered that with Tracy? I don't, well,
because you've done some historical stuff as well. Yeah, and
then the name rings a Bell, but I have not
(26:13):
read it. It's a good one. I will let you
borrow it if you want. The other one is one
that's called Costume and Detail and it's written by Nancy
Branford and it kind of breaks down like different elements
up close of of clothing and what they are and
how they all function. And it's just sort of a good,
um baseline education on what was happening and clothing at
different points in history. Uh. The other thing that I
(26:36):
would recommend is actually a DVD and it's uh, it's
put out by Laughing Moon Mercantile, which is primarily a
historical pattern company. If you just google Laughing Moon Mercantile,
it'll come up. Although the spelling of the U R
L is a little bit funky for laughing I think
it's l A f n UM. I'm not sure why,
but in any case, they produced it. It's a little
(26:59):
bit old, but the informay and is all still you know,
basically current because they're talking about historical stuff. It's actually
a DVD on how to make a Victorian corset, but
the whole first part of it is kind of a
history of course, it's and how they function, which if
you're looking at it as UH sort of fact gathering
so that you can draw about them. You will learn
exactly what is supporting what and how it all goes
(27:19):
together from sort of a um the physics and engineering aspect,
which will only make your drawings better. So those of
you my recommendations for Allison and really anybody that wants
to learn about historical underpinnings. UH. Those are, pardon the pun,
a great foundation for UH learning about foundations and and
where they all start. So that's that. If you would
(27:43):
like to write to us and ask us about historical
undergarments or anything else with camels, you can do so
at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. You can also
connect with us at Facebook dot com slash missed in History,
on Twitter at miss in History, and on mist in
history dot coms or dot com. Um. We are also
on Pinterest at pinterest dot com slash missed in History,
(28:04):
and you visit us on our very own shiny and
Brake website, which is missed in History dot com. If
you would like to learn a little bit more about
what we talked about today, you can go to our
parent website how to works and in the search bar
type in camel, and you will find an article that
is how long can a camel go without water? It
is quite long, quite a long time. The article isn't
(28:26):
long articles twenty two pages about the camel water absorption system. No,
it's briefing gets to the point. Uh. If you would
like to learn about that, or really anything else your
mind can conjure, you can do that at our website,
which is how stol works dot com for more on
(28:47):
these thousands of other topics because it has to have
works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly from I'm Tray Stevie Wilson uh and today's
topic is one we've actually been asked about a couple
of times. It's another one that's also been on my
(00:21):
list for a long time. I'm kind of trying to
go back to the ones that I wrote down when
we first moved on to the podcast as host, that
I was really excited about and then they get lost
in the shuffle. You know what happened to mine? What
we moved offices in my my white park, got to
raise the white board with my stuff on I got
a raise. Yeah. So yeah, I'm going back to some
of those because I always intended to do them. And
(00:42):
this one is a little bit of a ghost story.
It's got a little bit of US military history, and
it also featured animals, so it's kind of a wacky
mixed bag in terms of topics. And I decided to
kind of back off of doing much of an intro
on it because I kind of love the oddness of
the story and I want listeners to sort of hear
how it plays out. Like there's an explanation of what
(01:05):
initially seems supernatural to some people. UM, so we're just
gonna kind of set the scene and then kind of
explain what was really going on and how that came
to be. Uh. So it starts in three uh and
at this point a mysterious beast was spotted in Arizona.
This is the first time that this particular one is spotted. Uh.
(01:29):
And most of this story at the beginning, I should say,
is all reported by the Mojave County Miner, which was
a small newspaper. Uh. And I didn't have access to
those particular ones. I have it written as relayed by
another researcher, So just heads up on that. So in
three there were these two women who were home with
(01:49):
their children while the men of the family were away
tending their sheep flock. And they had had some issues
with Native Americans and sheep issues uh that are not
really made to the story. But so uh, while the
men were away and these two women were at home
alone with the children, they had an encounter which would
unfortunately prove fatal for one of them. So, according to
(02:10):
the legend, shortly after one of the women left the
house on Eagle Creek to go get some water. The
dogs started barking, and that prompted the other woman to
go to the window and see what was going on.
And what she saw she described as an enormous red
beast ridden by the devil. Uh She heard screams, but
(02:32):
because she was too terrified to leave the house, she
just kind of barricaded the door. She is said to
have kind of frantically said prayers the rest of the
time until the men returned. So when the men came
home and heard her story, they immediately mounted a search
party for the other woman who had gone out to
get water, but they didn't get far because they found
(02:54):
her nearby trampled to death. And because this was sort
of a mysterious death, there was some suspicion initially by
the um the authorities that examined the body, that maybe
she had been murdered by someone in the family, even
though the condition of the body was obviously very unique
in that it had been trampled h There was an inquest,
(03:16):
but in the end the verdict in the investigation was
reported in the local paper, the Mojabbi County Miner that
I mentioned as quote death in some manner unknown. So
just a few days after that, and a few miles
northeast of the first sighting, two prospectors woke up in
the night when their tent was crushed. They returned to
their mining camp in or Arizona with tales of this
(03:39):
impossibly tall horse. When a party made its way back
to the trampled camp, they found red hairs and large
hoofprints in the area. And naturally, this on top of
the uh, the woman having been killed in this sort
of mysterious way, uh really sort of started this, you know,
cultural moment on that is very natural of tall tales
(04:02):
and gossip about what started to be called the red Ghost.
And some of the people talking about it claimed that
they had seen and even pursued the red ghost. One
said he saw it vanish into thin air before his eyes,
So they really were laying on the supernatural abilities at
this point. About a month after the death of the
woman at Eagle Creek, a rancher named Cyrus Hamblin was
(04:24):
out getting stray cattle, kind of rounding them up when
he spotted the beasts near the Salt River. And this
was eighty miles northeast of the earlier sidings. And unlike
previous encounters, he knew what it was. It was a camel, Yeah,
he uh. It was not entirely unheard of for camels
to be in this area. Unusual, but not unheard of. Uh.
(04:49):
And Hamblin could see that there was also some sort
of load that was strapped to the animals back, but
he couldn't get close enough to catch the camel or
identify what that was on his back, but he said
that he believed that it looked like a deceased man,
and eventually the camel escaped him. Hamblin's word on the
matter solidified this whole story of the Red Ghost, which
(05:10):
people also called the Fantasia Colorado. That was what the
Spanish speaking settlers of the area primarily called it. The
rancher was was well respected and his tail was not
really embellished. He didn't put a lot of, you know,
crazy spin on it. He didn't throw in any supernatural
or fantastical elements, except for the part that there was
(05:31):
probably a dead man on the creature's back, which some
people were kind of skeptical about. Yeah, but he was
very matter of fact about it, like, I think there's
a dead guy on the back of that camel, which
is a phrase you'd never think you're gonna say, but
there you go. Uh. So, several weeks after Hamlin's incident,
this time about sixty miles to the west of where
(05:52):
Hamblin had had his encounter, another group of prospectors spotted
what was believed to be the same animal, this at
this point having been still believed by some people to
be supernatural and others to be like, no, no, it's camel. Uh.
They thought that the best course of action was just
to start firing wildly at it, and they didn't actually
hit it, however, or if they did, they merely grazed it.
(06:14):
But as it ran for its life, the burden that
was on its back because there was something on its back, dislodged,
and the prospectors, once the camel had gone, advanced on
this fallen cargo, and what they actually discovered was in
fact a human skull with some hair and a very
few shreds of decomposed skin still clinging to it. And
(06:35):
so in this moment, Cyrus Hamblin's story was completely corroborated
by this rather grizzly discovery, so it once again supported no, no,
he is really a stand up guy that doesn't talk crazy.
There is a dead guy on that camel's back in
so ten years after the first sightings of the Red Ghost,
a man by the name of Missoo Hastings found a
(06:58):
red camel eating in his garden or Arizona, and this
time he shot it dead. The camel had straps of
leather still tied to it, and in some places the
straps had cut into its flesh. This residual strap work
led people to conclude that this was the same camel
that had been running around the area with a corpse
strap to it for the last ten years. Yeah, the
(07:19):
corpse wasn't actually there the whole time, but it was
a very intricate, like a netting almost of these straps.
So he had been wearing those straps and presumably pieces
of this deceased person for quite some time. But who
the dead man was remains something of a mystery. I
read your note is where the dead man was remained
something of a mystery, And I'm like, scattered around the
(07:41):
dwell bea that part we know or we'd presume. Uh.
And in the years between the time that the skull
had been picked up and when Missoo hastings had killed
the Red ghosts uh, and there had been other sightings
during that time, But there had also been a lot
of speculation that perhaps the corpse had been a man
who had strapped himself onto the camel when he was
(08:04):
thirsty and near death, hoping that the animal was going
to eventually lead him to water. It didn't work, apparently,
well they've realized that wasn't really what happened. Well, once
the felled camel and its straps had been examined, though,
it was apparent that they could not have been tied
by a man, the man who was writing, and this
conclusion led the Mohave County Minor to say this, the
(08:26):
only question is whether the man was tied on for
revenge or merely as an ugly piece of humor by
someone who had a camel and a corpse for which
he had no use. Yeah, so there's it's never really
been uh solved one way or the other. In addition
to who it was, but whether he had been alive
or dead when he had been strapped to the camel.
So the mystery of the Red Ghost was dissolved at
(08:50):
that point as it was ever going to be. Uh. However,
that leads us to the next part of the episode,
which is why a camel was wandering around the American
Southwest in the first place. And before we get to that,
we're gonna have a word from our sponsor, and now
we will hop back to Arizona. So the introduction of
(09:10):
camels into the US was actually a military function, and
it actually took two decades from the time the first
studies were conducted about this idea to the actual introduction
of camels into the American Southwest. It all started in
eighteen thirty six when E. F. Miller Esquire conducted a
camel study and wrote a letter detailing his findings to
(09:32):
the U S. Quartermaster Captain George H. Craftsman of Georgia
and UH in the spring of eighteen forty three. So
it still some years later. U. S. Quartermaster General Thomas S.
Jessup received a letter from Crossman extolling the potential virtues
of camels as pack animals for use in military service.
(09:53):
Crossman characterized camels as imposing and being potentially intimidating to
the horses favored by Native American so they felt that
they would have the upper hand in any dealings UH
with natives and camels had also, you know, after all,
been part of various militaries throughout world history, and Crossman
cited Miller's research as a source of validation for all
(10:14):
his assertions about how great camels could be for the service.
This is because the discworld books didn't exist yet. We're
not we need to find a time machine and then
handed off to them and they don't pull any punches
about how terrible camels can be to work with. Crossman
also discussed using camels in the army with the Quartermaster
(10:36):
Henry Wayne, who was very interested in the idea, and
then in eighteen forty eight, so this is still all
percolating along via years and years and years, Henry Wayne
went to the War departments with this idea, and though
that had already taken quite some time, it was actually
another six years before the concept of introducing camels into
military service in the US took another significant step. That
(11:00):
was in eighteen fifty four when Jefferson Davis, the Secretary
of War, made a report to the Senate proposing the
introduction of camels into army use. And in addition to
the previous missives that promoted the use of camels, Davis
had also been influenced by naval officer Edward Fitzgerald Beale.
Bale had read the writing of ever East our Hook,
(11:22):
a French missionary who penned a travel diary called Recollections
of a Journey through Tartari, Tibet and China during the
years eighteen and eighteen forty six. He was really taken
with the accounts of camels in this work, and he
shared his very enthusiastic point of view on the topic
with anyone who would listen, including Jefferson Davis. And the
(11:47):
timing of this at this point was good because of
the increasing burden that the US was facing in the
Southwest at the time. So Davis's idea really was met
with some enthusiasm, and this was because there was a
growing need both for transportation of troops as well as
for moving heavy loads of supplies. So this is, you know,
mid eighteen hundreds, when we are slowly pushing out to
(12:07):
the west and things are being built, uh, and the
ability of camels to survive in conditions similar to those
in the desert areas of the Southwest started to make
them look like a pretty appealing solution to the problems.
So In early eighteen fifty five, Davis was granted a
budget of thirty thousand dollars to start working on a
camel corps. He immediately sent Henry Wayne to the eastern
(12:28):
Mediterranean to find suitable camels to buy. And Wayne was
joined in this mission by Navy Lieutenant David Dixon Porter,
who was actually a relative of Beal. And the two
men did not make a direct route through the Mediterranean
too like Camel Country, they actually stopped at many places
along the way. UH. They stopped throughout Europe. They interviewed
(12:49):
camel experts and got their opinions. They talked to zoologists,
They visited with royals who owned camels as part of
their menageries. UH. And they also made several stops around
the mediterrane in like they visited Tunis, they visited Malta,
and in some of these places they would purchase stock
if they found it suitable. UH. They also, while they
were doing all this stuff, dropped off Wayne's son at
(13:10):
a French boarding school, where the boys stayed for several years.
He did not finish the camel travel. While you're in France,
why don't you go to school for a while On
February eighteen fifty six, Wayne and Porter started their journey
back to the US aboard the U. S. S. Supply
and they were traveling with thirty three camels. This was
(13:31):
a mix of Arabian bactory and Tunis and two Lue
camels along with five handlers. This group landed at Indian
on the Texas on May fourteenth, and that's where the
camels were offloaded from the U. S. S. Supply and
then they began marching uh Tutor destination which was Camp
very day, and they got to Camp very day on
(13:51):
August that same year. In eighteen fifty seven, Porter made
the journey to the Eastern Mediterranean again bringing back forty
one more camels. Also in eighteen fifty seven, Beal took
one of the camel handlers who was named Hadji Ali,
who you will also see him listed in historical references
high Jolly, because apparently Americans that could not quite manage
(14:14):
his name nicknamed him that. See my my expression of
being rather nonplus. Yeah, he didn't apparently seem terribly concerned
with it. Um. But they all went on a survey
expedition which had been ordered by President James Buchanan, and
this team was tasked with building a wagon road from
Fort Defiance, New Mexico, to the Colorado River, and they
(14:37):
took twenty five camels with them on this assignment so
that they could test out the beasts, and it turned
out that the camels did a really good job. Side note,
this wagon trail also marked the travel path that would
eventually become the legendary Root sixty six. Yeah, first found
by camels. Yeah. My my friends Natan Carey drove the
(14:57):
entire length of that as a summer make Asian last summer.
I have friends that moved out to Los Angeles last
year and they did a similar thing on the way.
I think it's an awesome fun thing, have road trip time,
having the witnessed other people doing it. Yeah, I'm kind
of like, let's get to the destination already, not be
in the car all day, But that's me. Uh. It
(15:17):
turned out that these camels could easily carry three hundred
pounds and they could travel for four miles an hour,
which doesn't sound terribly fast, but compared to other options,
they did quite well, especially considering their heavy cargo with
very few stops, so they could just kind of go
all day long. Uh. And they didn't really need to
have provisions for their meals carried along because they were
(15:39):
able to grade on the cedar and the creasote bush
that were plentiful along the route and which other pack
animals could not eat. Uh And the camels were also
able to outlast other pack animals on difficult journeys, so
in some cases when they had brought other animals along,
they would have to abandon them because they could not
hack the conditions, whereas the camels could just keep going.
That's terrible, it is. This one's a little off for
(16:00):
the animal lover in me. Henry Wayne in particular, really
championed the camel's usefulness. According to one story, after hearing
remarks about the camel's not being impressive as pack animals,
he had one of his camels loaded with four hay bales,
which totaled more than a thousand pounds, to just show
off how strong it was. Yeah, again, the animal lover
and me struggles with a little bit of the story.
(16:21):
Um like, that's kind of abusive, but uh so, initially,
you know, at this point, the Camel Corps looked like
it was going to be a success because they were
doing very well in the desert conditions, they could carry loads.
They could outlast mules and horses no problem. But of
course that is not the whole story. If you've ever
ever seen a book with a camel in it, or
(16:42):
maybe just like seeing a picture of a camel, you've
ever seen a camel, you're right. Even if it's been
like a far away glimpse of a camel, you can
probably grasp that they have tempers. Yeah, I mean, that's
what they're known for. When I think most people if
they just do a quick like association and someone says camel,
you think, oh my goodness, they're gonna spit and trample me. Yep.
That has proved to be a problem. They could be
(17:04):
very difficult, and they sometimes completely disregarded their handlers. They
would growl at soldiers as they approached with loads that
they were going to like on onto them. Oh and
also cammell smell pretty bad. Yeah uh, and I'm sure
they probably weren't getting washed very regularly. I'm just imagining
(17:24):
what effort it would take to wash a camel at
this point in history. Yeah, a lot. It would take
a lot of effort. Couldn't just pull out a hose, no,
I mean you there, Oh, natural probably buckets maybe hope. Uh.
And that smell is actually part of the reason. Uh.
(17:46):
It's attributed to part of the reason why they spooked
the horses. And as you recall, this had been a
selling point for the camel Corps when it came to
the horses the Native Americans used. But this was a
huge problem when they were horses that were being used
by the same US troops that were also employing the camels,
and they had to deal with this interspecies problem. So
(18:08):
the horses were not delighted by the camel's presence. They
would get very scared. And keep in mind, these are
large animals, so when one is angry and one is spooked,
you can imagine how difficult it is to sort of
corral that, and then multiply that by the many that
we're traveling together. That could be deadly. Uh. And it's
probably understandable that many of the soldiers openly complained about
(18:30):
the situation. UH. And even General David Twiggs, who commanded
Texas and thus was a very powerful man in the military,
he made it pretty clear that he would just rather
have mules and could we please not deal with these
camels so as the Civil War, mounted Confederate troops took
Camp bear Day in February of eighteen sixty one, and
so while the camels had proven their usefulness, they still
(18:53):
were not a standard part of military operations. This is
still considered an experimental concept and they hadn't really been
planned for as part of the Confederate war effort. So
the animals then were, you know, there at Camp fair Day,
and they were used and sometimes abused again a little
difficult for the animal lover, uh, in a variety of
(19:14):
sometimes kind of odd ways. Some were used for just
transporting goods and freight, just like they had been prior
to eighteen sixty one. Some were used for entertainment rides,
and some were sent around to other bases. One was
allegedly pushed off a cliff by Confederate soldiers because they
found it bothersome and they didn't want to take care
of it. And some were just neglected or set loose. Yeah,
(19:37):
I mean, my heart breaks at the thought of an
animal being en off a cliff or even just abandoned
or neglected. At the same time, just from the point
of view of like someone in that situation, I can
imagine that there is an element of I don't know
what to do with these things, and there is a
herd of them at this camp, uh, and they just
didn't know how to deal with them. We should also
(20:00):
mentioned that while being set loose in some cases may
have seemed like a kindness, we should note that these
animals had been bred in domestication. I mean, they were
bred as stock. They weren't like wild camels that have
been cotton tamed, so they had never been wild, and
fending for themselves in the brush, even though they were physiologically,
you know, pretty well suited to the environment, was likely
(20:21):
a very stressful situation. And additionally, when prospectors or cowhands
would encounter these animals that have been set free just wandering,
they kind of viewed them as target practice. So they
were really treated very poorly and inhumanly. Union troops took
Camp very back in eighteen sixty five, but reconstruction resulted
(20:43):
in a diversion of funds away from the camel corps,
and as the railroad system was built farther and farther west,
you know, the camels had been helping to run supplies
for a lot of the construction. The need for the
camels just evaporated, and in eighteen sixty six most of
the remaining camels when camp very toy had been taken
back or sold at auction in New Orleans, Louisiana, and
(21:05):
also in Benicia, California. And these were sold at significant loss. Uh.
Some were purchased by circuses, carnivals or zoos. Some were
likely sold to be used as meat. Some were purchased
by like just private people who were like, I have money,
I'll buy a camel, and then they often turned around
and resold them for a much higher rate. They were,
in essence camel flippers. Camel flippers. Yeah, so today there
(21:30):
are camel core reenactors who keep a small number of
camels for education purposes. There's a comedy film made about
the whole thing in the seventies, and there's even a
children's book about it. There's also a memorial to the
camel core at the final resting site of the camel
handler Hagia l E in Quartzite, Arizona, and it's kind
of a pyramid shaped a little memorial that stands there
(21:55):
in references both Higil's work as well as just the
camel coret itself. Because he stayed in the US even
after his need his work as a camel handler was done.
While the Red Ghost was felled in camel sidings continued
in Arizona, California, and Mexico well into the twentieth century.
Even in the nineteen fifties there were people who claimed
(22:17):
that there were still camels in Sonora and Baja California. Yeah.
Completely random species introduced, and we're allegedly, you know, kind
of surviving in the desert for a long time, some
being very elderly, I'm sure, and others possibly having made
it and had their own little camel families. I am
(22:38):
going to say that I am relieved that it was
not more like the introduction of kadzoo. I mean, can
you imagine if camels overran the Southwest the way rabbits
overran Australia. I thought about that as I was doing this,
I was like, I guess camels didn't do so well
in the hole propagating and and sort of you know,
(23:00):
a huge blow up of population, which is good. I
still feel very bad for the camels because they can't
get past that. Uh. And it's interesting. You'll here's some
nice or read when you're looking at research about this. Uh,
there are historians who like to theorize what would have
happened if we hadn't completely abandoned the camel core experiment,
because it did seem like it had some uh fairly
(23:22):
you know, positive aspects to it, even though the camels
tended to be grumpy and problematic. You know, some like
to wonder what had happened if the Union Army had
incorporated them into regular service after they had taken back
camp ver day. And we'll never know, of course, but
we do know that they could survive on their own
in the desert for decades. Uh. So, you know, on
the off chance here in the Southwest it's the a
(23:44):
random camel probably related to those. There haven't been sightings
in decades, so I would be shocked. But unless some
ridiculous wealthy person purchased this one as a pet and
that sets it free because they're fool, it's probably not
going to happen. But that is the camel core. And
that's one of those things that um because it involves
(24:07):
so many moving parts and names that are also connected
to other aspects of the Civil War, you know, it
can quickly blossom out into a very huge and long thing,
and we may eventually cover other parts of this story
that kind of interlock. But that's the scoop on why
there was a camel running around looking like a devil, uh,
killing people with a corpse. Yeah, and it kind of
(24:28):
explains when you think about that, why that camel seemed
to be pretty aggressive towards humans. It had clearly been
treated badly. Someone had strapped a person to it and
send it off. It was carrying something around, uh that
was tied tightly enough to be cutting into its flesh,
so it probably was very grumpy. Did not associate humans
(24:48):
with good things. Uh, that's scoop. Do you have some
listener mail for us? I do, And it's such a
dear change from camels, it will evolve no animal talk whatsoever. Uh.
It is from our listener, Allison, and she says, Um,
I am a cartoonist who loves history, so I love
being able to listen. So being able to listen all
I draw is wonderful. I'm ready to ask for advice,
(25:09):
possibly for both of you, but perhaps mostly Holly, as
I know of her passion for historical clothing. I want
to make a comic about the history of underwear. Okay,
my aside, Allison, I just fell a little bit in
love with you. Of course, she says. The first thing
I did was to search your archives, and I was
so happy to find the episode about that exact topic.
I really enjoyed it, and it piqued my interest even more.
(25:30):
I'm looking for suggestions for books, websites, and anything else
you might think would be helpful. I don't know much
about the history of clothing in general, so I have
a lot of research ahead of me, so any guidance
is welcome. Uh oh, I'm so happy to suggest my
two favorite books and one other thing. Um. The first
is one called Course. It's in crinolines. It's written by
a woman named Nora Waw. It's kind of considered the
(25:53):
gold standard of underwear history. I will tell you this.
It's laid out a little bit oddly in terms of
how the chapters are sectioned, but once you kind of
get the hang of the structure of it, it all
makes a lot of sense. And it's a pretty comprehensive history.
Have you ever encountered that with Tracy? I don't, well,
because you've done some historical stuff as well. Yeah, and
then the name rings a Bell, but I have not
(26:13):
read it. It's a good one. I will let you
borrow it if you want. The other one is one
that's called Costume and Detail and it's written by Nancy
Branford and it kind of breaks down like different elements
up close of of clothing and what they are and
how they all function. And it's just sort of a good,
um baseline education on what was happening and clothing at
different points in history. Uh. The other thing that I
(26:36):
would recommend is actually a DVD and it's uh, it's
put out by Laughing Moon Mercantile, which is primarily a
historical pattern company. If you just google Laughing Moon Mercantile,
it'll come up. Although the spelling of the U R
L is a little bit funky for laughing I think
it's l A f n UM. I'm not sure why,
but in any case, they produced it. It's a little
(26:59):
bit old, but the informay and is all still you know,
basically current because they're talking about historical stuff. It's actually
a DVD on how to make a Victorian corset, but
the whole first part of it is kind of a
history of course, it's and how they function, which if
you're looking at it as UH sort of fact gathering
so that you can draw about them. You will learn
exactly what is supporting what and how it all goes
(27:19):
together from sort of a um the physics and engineering aspect,
which will only make your drawings better. So those of
you my recommendations for Allison and really anybody that wants
to learn about historical underpinnings. UH. Those are, pardon the pun,
a great foundation for UH learning about foundations and and
where they all start. So that's that. If you would
(27:43):
like to write to us and ask us about historical
undergarments or anything else with camels, you can do so
at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. You can also
connect with us at Facebook dot com slash missed in History,
on Twitter at miss in History, and on mist in
history dot coms or dot com. Um. We are also
on Pinterest at pinterest dot com slash missed in History,
(28:04):
and you visit us on our very own shiny and
Brake website, which is missed in History dot com. If
you would like to learn a little bit more about
what we talked about today, you can go to our
parent website how to works and in the search bar
type in camel, and you will find an article that
is how long can a camel go without water? It
is quite long, quite a long time. The article isn't
(28:26):
long articles twenty two pages about the camel water absorption system. No,
it's briefing gets to the point. Uh. If you would
like to learn about that, or really anything else your
mind can conjure, you can do that at our website,
which is how stol works dot com for more on
(28:47):
these thousands of other topics because it has to have
works dot com.
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Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.