all right. well, hello and welcome, everybody. that's good seeing you here today at the american civil war museum in appomattox for today's program, i i'm pleased to introduce our guest, author dr. ken rutherford. ken rutherford, ph.d., is professor in the department of political science at james madison university. he co-founded the landmine survivors network and escorted princess diana on her last humanitarian mission to visit landmines. survivors in bosnia and herzegovina. brother rutherford was prominent also as a leader in the international campaign to ban landmines, which won the 1997 nobel peace prize. he has served as director of the center for internet national stabilization and recovery at gmu. he's been a peace corps volunteer in mauritania, unhcr emergency refugee coordinator and somalia humanitarian and emergency relief officer in northern kenya and somalia. and as a fulbright scholar in jordan, he holds a ph.d. in government from georgetown university, a b.a. and mba from the university of colorado, where he lettered in football and was inducted into their hall for distinguished alumni. dr. rutherford has also served on the board of trustees with the shenandoah valley battlefield foundation, which preserves and interprets the region's significant civil war battle fields and related historic sites. as a quick note, we will have a question and answer period after dr. rutherford speaks. if you'd like to ask a question, just please form a line behind the mic to the left and without further ado, ken. the floor is yours. thank you. thank you very much. thank you, bob. and thank you all for being here on a saturday with nice weather here in beautiful appomattox. it's a honor and a privilege for me to present this topic to you. you'll soon find out that it's been a labor of love regarding the civil war. i grew up in colorado, or there's not a lot of civil war history, but i remember our east coast battlefield trips and arsenal landmine issue, an issue that i've been working with for in for over a quarter of a century. and it's matching up to my passion. so what i hope to do today is highlight the use of landmines in the civil war and the world. landmines have killed and maimed more people than chemical, biological and nuclear weapons combined. traditionally, it was thought that world war one was the first time that landmines were used. i wrote a book in 2010 at the international landmine issue, and it wasn't until 2011, which i'll show you, that i started discovering civil war battlefields where landmines were used in a thesis that the american civil war was the first time that victim activated mines command detonated mines or landmines of any kind were used in the world's history. and a widespread basis. briefly on personal introduction, land landmines. this may be some of your first introductions to my mines, or if you've been in the military, you've been introduced to landmines. and then what i hope to do is highlight each year the american civil war was one battle over landmines were used. i have found 15 to 17 different battlefields where landmines were used. but i want to draw out one battle from each year to show you the evolution that the technology and the tactics in the american civil war. this is a brief introduction to landmines. if you don't know landmines are mostly victim activated. it they're triggered by the footfall of a human being or the pressure of a vehicle. this is a chinese type 72 anti personnel mined. it's pressure sensitive that does not detate unless somebody steps on it. on the left is the china is a type 72. brand new. you could buy it for a couple of bucks in cambodia easily come top hoppers of an adulttepson. theysually most lose their toes or foot. and on the right is a study that we did at jmu, looking at the deteriorating effects of explosives in the soil. and this is how the same landmine looks. after oua decade in tropical soil. this is an anti-tank mine or a anti vehicle mine. there's no explosive agent in it, but it's designed to for a vehicle or cart or something heavy, the trigger. in other words, it doesn't go off by itself. it goes off when the victim or the vehicle puts pressure on it. so that's the type of weapon we'll be discussing. land mines are in many countries around the world, about 80, and most of those countries are ip. the darker colors are where land mines are heavily infested. this map is somewhat old, but the only one that i could find colombia right here is now one of the top three or four countries in the world with land mines, mainly. 25 years ago, when i entered into the land mine field, it wasn't in the top ten. america's little bit yellow, not because of the american civil war, but because of the japanese use of landmines in alaska. i was just there about ten days ago. i was in aleutians islands, dutch harbor. it's where i filmed deadliest catch. but dutch harbor was bombed twice by the japanese in world war two. pearl harbor, once the only two places in united states where the united states was bombed during world were two. but the japanese had taken over two islands and used land mines on a two. and kiska, which is the subject of an article i have coming out in october in a journal. so my accidental discovery was in 2012, actually, i misstated. in 2011 i had a book come out in 2010 on the international movement to ban landmines, moved to virginia in 2010. no idea that landmines were used in the american civil war. a neighbor was the math teacher at harrisburg high school and was taking the robotics team from harrisonburg high school. the vcu, to richmond for a robotics competition and they needed a chaperon. in other words, a vehicle to take some the students. so i volunteered. i have no engineering background and i want to visit for the first time the richmond area battlefields. and i said, i'll drop the kids off at vcu and i'm going tour the battlefields. and i was driving down the fort harrison, where the park service has an office, and i pull over at fort johnson. this little sign right here, there's a way marker here, and this house is behind it. i'd never heard of fort johnson. i'm sure some of you've never have, but maybe some of you have. it doesn't exist anymore. but the way marker says that artillery shells were repurposed as land mines in 1864 and 1865. and this blew me away. like what was a live transforming moment for me? because for the next eight years, i spent research on this subject that i never took that right turn. i would have had a different life the last eight years, four and 6 to 7 a.m. every day. i wrote and i wrote and i researched and land mines were not called landmines in the civil war that five or six different names sub terror's land torpedoes, infernal devices. so you just can't google civil war landmines. it doesn't show up. and so i chased for the next eight years personal records of confederate and union soldiers, primarily through the official records of the war, the rebellion, and other documents. the story that i'm going to share with you today. so this is the beginning of today's presentation. but first, if you just had your brief introduction, land mines, some of you for the first time, some of you, again, if you had training in the military, this is my introduction in early 1996. that's me. i was in somalia running a humanitarian aid program. half a million people are just starved. half a million people are about to die. well, it's heavily covered by cnn right after gulf war one. drove drove all over the southern southeastern part of somalia, south western part of somalia. this is right during black hawk down. this happened ten weeks. there's my vehicle right front. tire hits the landmine. i had no idea was a landmine. i knows my right foot came off. i was in a middle front seat. my legs wrangled to the right. and what really helped save our life beyond the topic of this discussion. but i'll share it with you, was that donkey cart in the lower right? we slowed down, hit the mine. we slowed down because of the donkey cart and because we had slowed our sed, our vehicle didn't carry over the explosion. it's almost at a perpendicular angle. ight foot came off in somalia. i was trying to put it back on myself. iad a radio to call for help. killer romeo. killer romeo for ken rutherford, we hit ldmine bleeding. oh, positive. send an airplane. my rest of my right leg came off that night and nairobi, kenya. my left leg in the united states. soon after, i was on tv, different news shows about somalia. then i was interviewed. we are invited to the white house and the senate foreign relations committee to testify about landmines. and that's when i started to research about landmines. i really had no idea what a landmine was really, that i wasn't unique, that the story you just heard isn't unique, but it happens 26,000 times a year. organize the landmine survivors network with a friend of mine, jerry white, who lost his leg in israel. these are all american landmine survivors. different parts, different wars, bosnia, vietnam, korea promoting prosthetics to go overseas for the thousands of people who need legs. i'm standing before you with no legs. and a lot of people don't know. i don't have legs. but that's the american technology told my story. and oprah trying to get the story out about landmine survivors and then work with princess diana. you heard of my introduction to bring her to bosnia, a newly independent country. i think she was one of the first celebrities to visit bosnia. she passed away a couple of weeks after this photograph was taken. but the whole world watched. and on the right, her sons, prince william and prince harry, did a documentary about their mother, which is now on hbo. and they asked me and gerry to be in the video to highlight the humanitarian impact of their mother. this is the book i wrote on the global movement to ban landmines, which was published in 2010. moved to virginia in 2011, discovered for johnson and the use of landmines in 2012. and that's where the story begins of america's buried history. so let me just start here and grab some might grab some of my notes at the beginning of the american civil war and the south new that the union was going to try to shut down the harbors and the ports, the union had developed a plan called the anaconda plan a, much like the bow constrictor of south america that squeezes its prey, the snake, the anaconda. the union was going to do that to the confederate. the confederate states of america shut down the mississippi be blocked. the ocean ports. so the south could not export its cotton and could not import raw materials. and third is take richmond up the james river. this plan proposed by general winfield scott was laughed at by the northern media as a joke. a cartoon of a snake trying to wrap around the confederate states of america. his plan was ridicule. ridicule, but it was effective. it strangled the confederacy, trading about 90% of confederate ships were able to leave southern ports. in 1861, within one year, that figure was cut down to 15% because of the union blockade. what does that have to do with the story? the confederate states of america invested money in military technology to counter the anaconda plan. this technology would for the sea was going to make its way inland in about a year or two. but let me highlight three examples of this explosive technology that the confederate states was using to develop countermeasures against the anaconda plan. on the left is a propeller explosive device. on the right is a stationary explosive device. this was to attack shipping union shipping or union vessels and blow them up if they came in contact with these explosives. the one on the right was from mobile, alabama. that's in the museum in mobile, alabama. most of these photographs are my own. let me just. well, i'm going to call for some support here for. not air support, but that was the two slides ago. how to call an air support to get me out of that somali minefield. oh, there you go. there you go. i'm glad it's your presence. the second is to see us torpedo boats are the torpedo class. these were sort of a form of kamikaze, but the crew would survive to live, to fight another day. it was a low, low vessel. it wasn't a submarine. much of it wasn't our water. but above the surface was the smokestack burning of coal that doesn't give smoke. and on the end, i'm going to highlight this is an explosive right there. the rand is ships. a confederate navy would reign. it would sneak up on union shipping. ram the explosive device that would raise the last second to blow a hole in the shell of the ship and to carry it down. and it was hoped that one that hit the targeted ship, it would result in explosion that would create a hole below the waterline and sink the federal vessel. it was an offensive explosive weapon, a third type of weapon was just floating explosive water cakes. this is the only explosive device at the west point military museum in new york. they have 13 different explosives that the confederates use or brought up to west point to the engineering school. but this is the only one on public display, and it was designed to target union shipping as a contact device. so you could see where the confederate states of america invested in technologies. but as the anaconda plan became more effective, the confederates, instead of wasting the technology, started applying it on land 1861, the first time that landmines were used in the western hemisphere, in the united states was in columbus, kentucky. clem, columbus, kentucky is on the mississippi river. it was known as the gibraltar star of the mississippi. you could see the bluffs here and it choked union shipping and general grant wanted to take it. he couldn't take it because of the defenses and part of the defenses were the land mines. and our surprise side, there are landmines use here. these are the maps that i designed for the book. how it jespersen was the mapmaker, but i told them to put the mines by planting mines and these roads. general polk of the confederate states army allowed him to redeploy his manpower to other areas of the fortification. columbus was never attacked. it was so powerful. the confederates were evac waited after fort donelson and kentucky fell in, the defenders were ordered to evacuate to fight another day. they didn't want to leave. but general barrow, your guard who's running the area, told general polk, get your men out of there. and general polk, as we could handle it. but they're going to be surrounded. and sure enough, in columbus, kentucky, union troops entered this evacuated town and came across a weapon that they had never seen before, which was the land mines. this is from harper's weekly. and these are the mines right here, copper pet kettles filled with explosives in a box with a line that would run into the fortification. there zero casualty. this because that would be just explain something. these were these were command detonated explosives where you knew to operate or we could lay explosives in the parking lot here, say a car comes in from we don't like we could press a button and blow it up that's a command detonated explosives as opposed to a contact or a victim and it activated explosives which we lay in the parking lot. it could be the dominoes delivery person. it could be a school bus, it could be the night guard. these were com command detonated. so even if you stepped on them, they wouldn't go off because they're triggered by electricity. and the confederates could not did not use them because they back awaited their position at of port hudson. so this is the first time that landmines were used but they're effective. they never the union never attacked for columbia part columbus. they just lk in virginia the state of many. first gen. cleland landed down here in and i can't see i can't read fort monroe area. and they're going to march up. this is in 1862, the largest army in american soil to date. what's going to march up the peninsula and attack and take richmond, part three of the general johnston ordered delaine measures along the peninsula yorktown. right here at the macgregor line to build up defensive fortifications. its toay odefeat federal forces. but as the federal forces started to pile e confederates knew that this was just aing action to give the confederate government and the military and the high command more time to build defenses around richmond. sothe asures that the confederate army took were quaker guns, just blocks like ncoln logs. big link, just point them out and sort of federal to look throe binoculars and think ey're our cannon did just a parade here marched them and secretly over here have a parade. they're creating noise sort of federal start. they're facing a larger army than they thought was possible. the confederate army received intelligence that on the morning of may 5th, 1862, the federal fair launch a major assault, and the defenders knew they couldn't resist that assault. so the evening of may 4th, they withdrew. they withdrew from yorktown in the macgregor line and the union soldiers cheered because they knew that they could take yorktown peacefully. and there would be zero casualties and and these are some of the impressions of the union soldiers. and i'm just going to read from the book here just a couple of times to the army's surprise at dawn, the vance in union troops found only abandoned and mud filled rebel trenches. no bloody assault would be needed. yorktown was in union hands. the news spread like wildfire and i quote loud cheers resounded along the line from the york river to warwick creek when the result was officially announced, recalled captain henry blake, the 18th massachusetts. and i quote and the bands which had been dumb for so long. again enlivened the soldiers. and in notes of a thousand drums and fives and bugles filled the woods with a discord of melody. the federals raced, and i unquote the federals raced to win everlasting glory by being the first to place their unit flag atop the confederate earthworks. i the initial jubilation proved to be short lived with an and adminis works encountered a new weapon the confederates had planted victim activated iron mines powdered to fill artillery shells topped with friction. primus set to explode when stepped on removed just a few inches under the soil union soldiers found the mines throughout the area and i quote in the vince vicinity, a spring hospitals and other places which they suppose the soldiers would visit, recalled one eyewitness. nearly 30 union soldiers were killed or maimed by what was soon to be referred to as infernal devices. some federals encountered torpedoes well in front of the town's defense, as, in other words, the union faced the enemy that they couldn't see. this is the cover of harper's weekly. of union soldiers stepping on his mines again. no army in the world had faced such widespread use of victim activated weapons. this is from the richmond national park museum. a reaper is a confederate artillery shell. it's no longer. i was just in richmond last week at the museum. the park service headquarters. and this is no longer on display. but the idea was to shell it out, put explosives. here's the friction primer. some union soldier steps on it, the presses it ignites, and the fuze and then it blows up. that wasn't the end of the peninsula campaign as the confederate troops retreated towards richmond. the federals were inotursuit and they laid landmines on the yorktown road an williamsburg road. the idea was the federals would t rch quickly ofa to pursue the retreating cavalry, retreating confederates due to land mines. and it worked. who is responsible for this use of victim activated mines was general gabriel raines. his brother george raines, you may know, was head of the augusta powder arsenal. the