Even with the young politician Jefferson Davis behind their adoption by the military, camels were a hard sell to the U.S. government. Along with other military men, Davis was convinced that camels could replace horses as the standard beasts of burden used by cavalry on the ever-expanding western frontier, but most congressmen and senators balked at the idea. When Davis tried to formally get a military appropriation for fifty camels (along with Arab trainers and other supplies) in 1851, the senators present for his speech thought the idea of cannon-carrying camels to be too frivolous to merit serious consideration, and the following year a similar request was similarly shot down.

But Davis was not