Book Log 2012 #38: The Last Camel Charge by Forrest Bryant Johnson

This book pledges to tell us the "untold story" of the US military's experiment of using camels in the southwestern deserts, and based on this book it looks like that story actually doesn't include camels for significant periods of time. There are lengthy stretches about the Mormon settlement of Utah territory and the ensuing conflict with the federal government, and other parts covering the troubled history of natives and the new Americans during westward expansion. But no camels, save for the occasional mention that tries to tie the sections together.

Not that camels are completely missing, but rather that for a book about them I found it odd that they'd go missing so often. I felt like this was a book more often about expansion and the conflicts with manifest destiny than how camels got to the US and into the military. I wonder if there was a concern that a book more sharply focused on camels would be too specific to appeal to a general audience. Or maybe the untold story of the camels wasn't interesting enough. There seems to be plenty of primary source material to build a book on, but if the camels didn't do much more than haul freight and make one charge against some Mojaves the resulting narrative may have been too dull.

It's not a badly written book - though occasionally too melodramatic and oddly fond of using quote marks to bracket off words or phrases that probably don't need them - but it's not the book I expected or wanted. Maybe I just need to see if I can find Hawmps! on Netflix.