Buried away in government reports and in books not generally handled by the public is a story of unfailing interest, that of the first and last "Camel Brigade," which made its way from San Antonio, Texas, to Bakersfield, California, in the late fifties of the [nineteenth] century. For many years after this unusual experiment, frequent reports were made to incredulous listeners concerning camels sighted from trails and camps. Such statements were labeled as effects of the mirages so common to the desert area and invariably suffered the fate of the alleged "fish story." We now know that real camels were wandering the desert wastes, and the story of the transplantation of these animals from the Near East to our own country involved a governmental experiment of great importance. Men and beasts were employed in an attempt to link up the expanding commerce and defence of two portions of a rapidly growing nation, and in the background stands the figure of the romantic militarist, that dreamer of national expansion, Jefferson Davis.