Military Intelligence Division

The Military Information Division (MID) was the first military intelligence branch of the United States Army and the United States Department of War, operating from 1885 to 1903.

The MID was established by Brigadier General Richard C. Drum, the then Adjutant General of the United States Army in October 1885 under his office in Washington, DC. It thus became the de facto first standing military intelligence agency of the United States. Whilst the Union Army had a Bureau of Military Information, it reported to the Commanding General for less than a year prior to being disbanded at the end of the Civil War.

The original duties of the MID consisted of collecting military data on foreign nations. Drum also asked senior Army commanders to have their officers to submit intelligence reports from their travels to foreign nations. "Initially, the division acted as a relatively passive repository for military related information." In 1889, the MID saw the formation of, directed and controlled what became the Defense Attaché System, with United States Armed Forces officers being dispatched to London, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, and St. Petersburg. The Secretary of War, Redfield Proctor, required all information from the attachés to be analysed by the MID. "By 1898, the MID had 16 attaché posts in Europe, Mexico, and Japan. Until the early 1940s, the attaché system constituted the foundation of the Army’s strategic collection effort."

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