Author: Ultimate Flags Store

Many have heard of the U.S. Army’s use of camels in the old west, well before the Civil War.  In the 1850’s, as the first American settlers started moving west, they realized their horses and mules weren’t cut out for the long, dry journeys between water sources. Many settlers wanted to find a different animal.

What you may not know is that it was Jefferson Davis who played a vital role in camels coming to America.  He was the first to encourage the U. S. to use camels while he was serving in the US Senate in 1855. He persuaded a skeptical Congress to to appropriate $30,000 to fund a purchase.  A ship brought them from (the modern countries of) Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and what’s now Turkey.

By the time of the Civil War, there was a camel named “Old Douglas” who had somehow made his way east to Mississippi, joining up with the 43rd Mississippi Regiment.  The men didn’t know anything about camels, and tried to keep him on a tether like a horse.  But no rope could ever hold “Old Douglas,” and eventually the soldiers learned to just let him graze freely.  That was no problem because he was never far from the men. But the Infantry’s horses feared “Old Douglas.” It is recorded that one day he spooked one horse into starting quite a stampede.

Besides acting a mascot, “Old Douglas” served the Confederate regimental band, carrying their instruments and supplies.  But wherever the 43rd went and whatever battles it fought, there was “Old Douglas.”

Old Douglas’s first active service was with Gen. Price in the Iuka campaign. Later he was present at the 1862 Battle of Corinth and stayed with the regiment until the Siege of Vicksburg. Here a battalion of Union sharpshooters were ordered to shoot “Old Douglas”. So enraged at his murder, the men swore to avenge him. Col. Bevier enlisted six of his best snipers, and successfully shot the culprit, severely wounding him.

Good “Old Douglas” served  the Confederate cause well and has the honor of his own grave marker at Cedar Hill Cemetery, in Vicksburg, Mississippi.  

Historians and Civil War Re-enactors recognize the significance of the history of camels in America. The Texas Camel Corps is an active group with the mission of promoting the stories of camels, like “Old Douglas,” used during the Civil War.

Members of this group say that some things we believe about camels are not true:

“They aren’t mean, they don’t spit (it’s the camel’s cousin, the lamas, who spit), and they’re every bit as smart as a horse – if not smarter.”

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Southern Irishmen from all over fought for the Confederacy, but Louisiana sent the most into the fray.  New Orleans was home to more Irishmen than any other city in the South. They were in many Confederate Regiments, but the 6th Louisiana had the most. Above is a the flag of that regiment. Half the Irish in the 6th had been born in Ireland.  The bulk of these men worked the docks and riverboats, were carpenters and bricklayers, clerks and policemen. The Irish were noted for their bravery in battle.  General Gordon described one charge they made: “As we reached the first line of strong and high fencing, and my men began to climb over it, they were met by a tempest of bullets… It was one of those fights where success depends largely on the prowess of the individual soldier… nothing could deter them. Neither the obstructions nor the leaden blast in their front could check them.” Half of Gordon’s men fell, but they kept on, hurling themselves into the line of battle-hardened Federals and driving them back. Another Confederate General wrote that the Northerners “ran like sheep without a Shepherd.” Union General Wallace later wrote that after witnessing Gordon’s attack formations that “it was time to get away.” In fierce fighting, Southern Irish helped carry the day.

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It was 1907, and the US Senate was debating what was to be the official name for the Civil War. Former Confederate and Union soldiers were present, and the record shows they were getting along just fine.  

Here is part of what Senator Hernando Money of Mississippi said, from the Senate Record: There was ex-Senator Blair, of New Hampshire, as gallant a soldier as ever went to the field, now on crutches as the result of wounds inflicted by Confederate soldiers. He was shot three or four times. He called to me. I did not recognize him on account of my bad sight. We shook hands. I said:

“What are you doing on these sticks, Blair?”

He said: “You fellows hit me pretty hard three or four times, and it is beginning to tell on me since I have been getting old.”

He said: “Did we get you?”

I said: “Once; not much.”

He said: “Are you not glad you got it?”

I said: “I do not know. I have not regretted it.”

He said: “I am glad I was hit.” We shook hands.

He said: “Any man who was worth being hit ought to have been there either on one side or the other. If you had been in New Hampshire you would probably have been in my regiment.”

I agreed that it was a great deal a matter of environment. Today, let’s not forget these men.

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One of Robert E. Lee’s most aggressive and successful generals, and probably the most courageous and determined was General John Gordon. He fought bravely and ferociously for the Confederacy the entire war, several times while wounded.At the Battle of Antietam Gordon’s took a minnie ball through his calf.  A second ball hit him soon after in the same leg, but he was still “…able to walk along the line and give encouragement to my resolute riflemen.”The battle continued, and later in the day Gordon took yet another ball in his left arm.  His men pleaded with him to go to the rear, but he refused and Gordon stayed to fight..Gordon and his men had earlier promised Lee that “…we would stay there till the battle ended or night came.”A fourth minnie ball ripped through Gordon’s shoulder. He later recalled, “I could still stand and walk, although the shocks and loss of blood had left but little of my normal strength.”It took a fifth hit that same day to bring Gordon down. The ball struck him in the face. When he woke up, Gordon asked the surgeon what he thought of his condition. Gordon relates,“He made a manly effort to say that he was hopeful. I knew better, and said: ‘You are not honest with me. You think I am going to die; but I am going to get well.’”And get well he did. Gordon was again wounded in later battles, but never failed to keep going. In fact, Gordon was the man Lee assigned to conduct the “furling of the flags” after Appomattox, even though Gordon’s leg still ached from a round received just 18 days earlier.When Gordon died in 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt described him this way,

“A more gallant, generous, and fearless gentleman and soldier has not been seen by our country.”

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Confederate Private Watkins tells a story about capturing a mule.“He was not a fast mule, and I soon found out that he thought he knew as much as I did. He was wise in his own conceit…. If I wanted him to go on one side of the road he was sure to be possessed of an equal desire to go on the other side.”But riding an ornery mule was still better than walking, so “me and mule worried along until we came to a creek. Mule did not desire to cross.”Nothing Private Watkins did persuaded the mule.  However, an artillery unit came along and offered to help. They got a rope and tied one end to the mule and the other to carriage pulled by a team of horses.“The mule was loath to take to the water. He was no Baptist, and did not believe in immersion, and had his views about crossing streams, but the rope began to tighten, the mule to squeal out his protestations against such villainous proceedings. The rope, however, was stronger than the mule’s ‘no,’ and he was finally prevailed upon by the strength of the rope to cross the creek.”On the other side the mule “… seemed to be in deep meditation. I got on him again, when all of a sudden he lifted his head, pricked up his ears, began to champ his bit, gave a little squeal, got a little faster, and finally into a gallop and then a run. He seemed all at once to have remembered or to have forgotten something, and was now making up for lost time. With all my pulling and seesawing and strength I could not stop him until he brought up with me at Corinth, Mississippi.”

Watkins tells another story about a mule, only he wasn’t the one riding it this time: “One fellow, a courier, who had had his horse killed, got on a mule he had captured, and in the last charge, before the final and fatal halt was made, just charged right ahead by his lone self, and the soldiers said, “Just look at that brave man, charging right in the jaws of death.”He began to seesaw the mule and grit his teeth, and finally yelled out, ‘It arn’t me, boys, it’s this blarsted old mule. Whoa! Whoa!’”

You may think mules are naturally very smart and focus on their own self-preservation, or they are just plain, stupid beasts. But you can’t dispute the fact they are, for sure, very stubborn. And when you think about it, that’s really not such a bad thing.

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The Confederacy had many outstanding officers, who are are due all honor and respect. But by far, the makeup of the rank and file of the army was mostly privates. Those men marched and fought. Some lived, some died, and today their descendants wish to gratefully remember them.

As Sam Watkins of the 1st Tennessee Regiment wrote:“The generals risked their reputation, the private soldier his life. No one ever saw a private in battle. His history would never be written. It was the generals that everybody saw charge such and such, with drawn sabre, his eyes flashing fire, his nostrils dilated, and his clarion voice ringing above the din of battle…”Yes, we honor the exceptional officers that led men in battle, exposing themselves to as much danger as did the private.  But we also remember the Confederate foot soldier.  As Watkins also wrote:“The private’s tread is light—his soul is happy… Well, you have come here to fight us; why don’t you come on? We are ready; always ready…. Come, give us a tilt, and let us try our metal. You say you going to flank us out of the Southern Confederacy. That’s your plan, is it? Well, look out… You will be a picked chicken before you do that.”No doubt, that pluck lives on to this day.

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