Old Camp Verde

Camp Verde was a United States Army facility established on July 8, 1856 in Kerr County, Texas along the road from San Antonio to El Paso.The camp was the headquarters for U.S. Camel Corps, which experimented with using dromedaries as pack animals in the southwestern United States. The Army imported camels in 1856 and 1857, using them with some success in extended surveys in the Southwest. The camels did not get along with the Army's horses and mules, which would bolt out of fear when they smelled a camel. The soldiers found the camels difficult to handle and they detested the smell of the animals.During the Civil War, on 28 February 1861 Confederate troops captured more than 80 camels and two foreign drivers at Camp Verde. A Texas Ranger company was assigned the camp in 1862 and J.W. Walker was in care of the camels, some of which were used to transport salt from San Antonio and Brownsville and San Elizario, while some transported cotton to Mexico. Three were let loose and found their way to Arkansas where Federal troops sent them to Iowa to be sold.Some camels were kept in San Antonio, where Rip Ford considered using them in his recapture of Fort Brown due to the drought conditions between the Nueces and Rio Grande. They were sent to Guadalupe, where two died, before being sent back to Camp Verde.