Death Valley Days: Camel Train

It is 1847 as Edward Beale (Stanley Lachman) and Kit Carson (William Reynolds) ride through the southwestern deserts.  It is difficult terrain but Beale claims that camels would be ideal.  He intends to lobby Congress to buy some camels from the Middle East.  Back in Washington, he convinces Senator Jefferson Davis (Harry Fleer), who promises to get funding.  Unfortunately, the rest of Congress is unconvinced.  Years pass.  In 1853, Davis is Secretary of War and is able to push funding for a Camel Corps.  Beale hears the good news from David Dixon Porter (Ed Hinton).  Porter explains how he will go to the Middle East to purchase camels and deliver them to Texas.  After that, it will be up to Beale.  Eventually, the camels arrive and Beale uses them on a trek from Texas to California.  He has high hopes but then the Civil War!  The War Department has no use for a camel corps and wants to cut costs on this unneeded program.

This is a fairly accurate retelling of the Camel Corps.  After California was secured a second time during the Mexican American War, Kit Carson and Ed Beale rode east together as shown.  The role of George Crossman as the chief proponent for camels and the man who likely bent Jeff Davis' ear on the subject is given to Ed Beale.  David Porter did sail to the Levant for camels and landed them at Indianola on the Texas coast.  Hadji Ali was the chief cameleer and was called "Hi Jolly," Beale mapped a new route across the southwestern deserts with the aid of camels.  The Camel Corps was disbanded and the camels sold on account of the Civil War.  Overall, good history to be had.

The story is almost a documentary in style.  Both Beale and Mary, his wife, break the fourth wall and narrate on several occasions.  That was very strange for a half-hour show.  Being only half an hour, there is a lot of compression.  The narration is clearly to pack in more information given the time constraints.  Even so, recommended.

Death Valley Days: Gold Rush in Reverse

Lt. Edward Beale (Stanley Lachman) of the US Navy is in California when gold is discovered.  Lt. Losier (Doug McClure) of the Army declares his intention to take a sample to Washington, DC, to let the country know of the find.  Beale is determined that the navy will have that honor.  As such, he buys a sample by selling a bottle of quinine from his medical kit.  However, Losier has already left and the ship on which he served doesn't have enough sailors to leave port; they deserted to join the gold hunters!  As such, he catches another ship and sails to the Mexican coast.  He rides from San Blas to Mexico City to Vera Cruz, fighting ladrones (bandits) for the entire 800-mile trip.  From Vera Cruz he sails aboard the USS Germantown.  Still concerned that Lt. Losier is on his tail, he only pauses for the night in Mobile, Alabama, before racing on toward Washington.  As luck would have it, Losier's ship had hit bad weather and he was delayed by months.  So it was that the US Navy delivered the news to Washington that gold had been discovered in the newly annexed California.

The story is more exciting than the history.  Indeed, Beale did cross Mexico, but the plentiful gunfights are fanciful addition.  Beale spoke Spanish and posed as a Mexican rancher during his incognito crossing.  However, this is a true story.  Entertaining and worth watching.

The Last Camel Charge

The title is misleading.  This book is so much more than the last, and only, camel charge in the United States.  Here we have the aftermath of the Mexican-American War, the California Gold Rush, the clash of cultures between whites and Indians, between Mormons and non-Mormons, and even between North and South when the Civil War intrudes.  Fact is stranger than fiction when Edward Beale, a Navy Lieutenant, was chosen to lead an expedition across the American southwest on camels.  Coincident with his 1857 camel expedition from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Los Angeles, California, there was the threat of war between the United States and the Mormons.  This combination created a shift from the California Trail - which passed through Mormon territory - to Beale's newly established (barely) trail.  It turned out the trail was not yet safe as the Mojave Tribe did not appreciate trespassers.  In 1858, a wagon train of migrants were attacked on the banks of the Colorado River, survivors fleeing back toward Santa Fe while leaving most of their belongings to the Mojave.  In 1859, the Army planned to subdue the Mojave by marching north from the mouth of the Colorado.  By happenstance, Edward Beale was working on improving the trail and had sent news to his colleague in California, Sam Bishop, to bring supplies to the Colorado River.  Bishop arrived well ahead of either Beale or the Army.  He had around 50 men, several mule-drawn wagons, and 20 camels.  The Mojave refused passage across the river and skirmishes ensued.  All efforts to cross the river were repulsed and the number of Mojave grew to 1500.  Unwilling to turn back, Bishop called for volunteers.  At dawn on April 7, 1859, Sam Bishop led a camel charge into 700 waiting Mojave braves!  Pistols blazed and the Mojave sought to dodge out of the way of this most unusual attack.  Amazingly, none of Bishop's men were lost and they successfully swam the camels across the river to meet Beale in the Arizona desert.

There is so much more to this book.  It covers everything found in the US Camel Corps, details the mythology of the Mojave, the persecution, migration, and settlements of the Mormons, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the various explorers who crossed the Southwest before Beale, The Rose-Baley Wagon Train, and much more.  One of the most surprising things about the tale is how close we were to having a camel corps in the deserts of the Southwest.  If not for the Civil War, it was quite possible that troops in that region would have been mounted on camels.  However, some of the biggest camel supporters had sided with the South.  Jefferson Davis had purchased the first bunch of camels while he was Secretary of War.  His successor, John Floyd, sought to purchase a thousand camels.  Both of these men joined the South, one as president and the other as a major general.  Is it any wonder their pet project was not revived after the war?

Forrest Bryant Johnson has written a truly terrific book that reads like an action-adventure novel.  Highly recommended.