Camels of the West

Let's say after the Louisiana purchase, the US decides to import camels from the Ottoman Empire to help with settlement.

How does that affect the west?
 
I don't think with the Louisiana Purchase, but in the South West. The Army did get some camels in Arizona but they broke free. If that works I think the US Goverment can buy more camels and breed them throughout the Mexican Cession.
 
So how would that affect the Civil War, when camels could be a potential alternative to horses?
 
Well, The Civil War wasn't really in the South West other then the Arozina campagin. And that was just one battle with a few men befor they fled back to Texas. So I don't see camels being used much. They aren't really used in war. In the Middle East Soliders uses horses. Camels are mostly used as pack animals.
 
So how would that affect the Civil War, when camels could be a potential alternative to horses?

Not very much; the only regions where camels are more useful than horses are also so far away from the main theaters, lines of supply, and critical resources for them to be considered. They would see more use against the Navajo and the Apache than they would against the CSA or the USA.
 
The end result of more early camel use in the Americas would probably be a lot of feral camels in the back country, similar to Australia's experience. They didn't offer obvious advantage to horses and mules in N. America and were harder to handle.

OTL, there once was a small feral camel population in Arizona after the demise of the pre-Civil War experiment with the Camel Corp.
 
the man who brought camels to the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi_Jolly

overall, everything I've read always mentions that the camels freaked out the horses,mules, and donkeys, and thus complicated the problems with establishing the project.

I've been all over the american southwest, and very little of it counts as desert to the extent that camels offer a distinct advantage over standard equine. It's desert, but there's enough water to support conventional (US) modes of animal transportation. transportation did not hold up mining, ranching, or other advancement of civilization, so camels simply don't represent any sort of difference maker. with enough effort, the project could have been successful, but I'd have to hear some reasoning why the effort would have been worth it.
 
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