In the 1850s, United States soldiers in full uniform really did trek across the deserts of Texas and Arizona on camels. In this episode we explore the United States Camel Corps, one of the most bizarre and little-known experiments in American military history, and a case study in how a genuinely brilliant idea can be doomed by spectacularly bad timing.

We start with the logistical nightmare of horses and mules dying of dehydration in the Southwest, the officers George H. Crosman and Henry C. Wayne who first proposed camels, and Secretary of War Jefferson Davis who lobbied Congress for a $30,000 appropriation. We follow the USS Supply on its Mediterranean shopping trips, Lieutenant David Dixon Porter's floating barn with canvas harnesses that suspended camels during storms, and the field tests in which camels carried 600 pounds, went days wi ...