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Birth of the landmine
During my 22 years in the military, before coming to work in the museum's Archives Center, I trained extensively for the possible threat of improvised explosive devices, commonly known as IEDs. In the early part of my career, IEDs were never the most immediate threat to military personnel, but this has changed dramatically over the last decade and a half. Since 2002, IEDs have accounted for nearly two thirds of U.S. battlefield fatalities and the majority of combat related casualties. Despite the increased threat of IEDs, it never occurred to me to study when IEDs were first used in warfare.
Last year, an Archives Center researcher found a Civil War letter by a Union soldier in our Warshaw Collection of Business Americana. In the letter, the soldier detailed his account of what he saw during and after the Battle of Williamsburg, and the Union casualties caused by buried explosives that had been set around abandoned fortifications by retreating Confederate forces. I thought the soldier's story odd, because he described what appears to be an early use of a homemade landmine or IED. In all of my training, I have never heard of the use of IEDs that far back. My interest piqued, I began my investigation into the letter and the history of the IED.
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