In 1855, Senator Jefferson Davis got Congress to appropriate $30,000 to purchase camels in the Middle East for use by the Army in the West. The theory was that camels would do better than mules in transporting supplies in the arid area. 33 camels were purchased at an average of $250 each. Only one died on the voyage to America. The camels were designated the Camel Corps. They proved to be great load-haulers, but the beasts were despised by the mule skinners who were supposed to use them. The animals resented mistreatment and would spit on anyone that threatened them. It was falsely believed that they stored water in their humps. This myth caused their handlers to assume that if the hump looked good, it meant they had plenty of water. The Civil War put an end to the experiment and the remaining camels were sold or abandoned.
In Arizona in 1883, two ranchers wives were left at home when their husbands left to do rancher stuff. One of women spotted a strange red beast with what looked like a demon on its back. She locked the door to the cabin and waited for her husband to return. When the men got back, they found the other wive trampled to death. A few days later, a 30-foot tall beast was spotted. The tale took off and soon the beast was seen eating a grizzly bear. The rider was determined to be a skeleton. One year later, five miners shot at the “Red Ghost”, as the papers called it. They missed, but did knock off the skull of the skeleton. The Red Ghost was supposedly seen at various places in southern Arizona over the next ten years. In 1893, a farmer shot and killed it, thus proving that there was a red camel that had been roaming around for years. The explanation for the skeleton has eluded historians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Ghost_(folklore)
https://www.americanheritage.com/red-ghost
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