were forced to fire when shot and reload, so they were at a distinct disadvantage to the federal troopers. the battle of selma was a short, intense affair. from themen came down north to selma and were attacking the city from the north and work essentially on the north and east and north and west sides. militia,ddle was this untried troops, older men, younger boys who were not battle tested. they were the weak link in wilson was aware of that. and when long attack he attacked those meant primarily, and they put up little resistance and quickly collapsed and allowed federal troops to come over the wall and within the federal -- and within the fortifications to what we call the confederate rear. confederate troops had no choice but to fall back closer to town to establish a second line of

defense, which they did. federal troops chased them over half a mile into the works, and once they got to that inner line of defense is, general wilson attackedcavalry escort in a cavalry charge down summerfield road, sabres in the air, horses flying, against what was known as readout number three, a small for. general wilson reformed with dismounted men on foot to attack, at which point they carried that point. but at that time the confederates had withdrawn. it had gotten dark. as federal troops came in, confederates were trying to get out of the city, and you had short, intense combat on the streets as escaping confederates ran into advancing federals. there would be intense fights and that it would break up. one federal trooper said, women and children screaming,

excitement high everywhere. it was most like the horrors of war, a captured city burning, demoralized army retreating and a victorious one advancing. that was the scene in selma april 2, 1865. the city was open. to his credit, the next day general wilson would post a guard at any house that requested one, but that night it did not happen. the troops had free reign of the city and there were robberies, there were outrageous, no private citizen lack or white was safe. they committed outrages at the hands of the invading troops. this destruction in selma was almost complete. federal troops by order had shot and 80led 300 horses mules and left them where they were. the animals the federal troops brought in, that they rode in

on, that were broken down and unusable, they were killed and replaced with animals captured here. when they did this, they killed them where they stood read the commons areas were full of dead and dying animals, and the locals had no way to move them. they had to bring oxen from the countryside to drag the corpses and throw them in the river. the foodstuffs, what they federals could not use they destroyed. they rendered it unusable. the people were left in a destitute and almost starving condition when they left. selma had gone far, from being at the beginning of the war of very wealthy, rich, agricultural 21 at the end of the war that was almost destitute and unable to care for itself. but through the intrepid miss of ss ofeople -- intrepidne the people, they quickly rebuilt

and became what at the latter part of the 1800s was the political and economic center of alabama. on april 2, when selma fell, the evacuation of richmond began. the same day federal troops left selma, april 9, 1865, was the same day generally surrendered to grant at appomattox. so selma was rendered to a footnote at the end of the war. but had the loss of selma occurred six months or a year earlier, without a doubt the war would have been ended. we are at the site of camp the largest prisoner of war camp west of the mississippi during the civil war. it existed as a prison camp from august 1863 through may 1865. stagedt prisoners work

may 27, 1865, 6 weeks after appomattox. at the greatest time, somewhere around 3000, but all told 5437 prisoners can be had as having come through this facility. if you had to have been a prisoner of war in the civil bestthis probably was the or one of the best camps to exist in. it started as a camp for officers and the summer of 1863. winter, they were able to build reasonably substantial log quarters. the spring came in at the southwest corner of the stockade, and when large numbers of prisoners started to be of 1864, late spring this camp had a sense of internal order and discipline. the officers quarters were above the spring and they could control the water supply and keep it you are. so the primary thing is that

they kept their water supply good and clean and pure. i have been a longtime member of the county historical society and have been working with this -plus years in0 terms of researching and developing it. the part of the grant application where we received the grant to develop this site as a historic park included two seasons of archaeological work done by texas a and m university. the lithograph that was drawn from a drawing in 1865, once we got some sense of where the boundaries for the stockade were, i can take you over there and show you where the artist was sitting when he was driving a sketch of the stockade. it matches perfectly. a prisoner named albert anger from the 48th ohio came back in 1896 and

stepped off the stockade. there's a great handwritten and the descriptions she gave masked the archaeological work in terms of -- matched the archaeological work in terms of the perimeters of the arcade. early 1865 but other than that, i can almost tell you what the weather was out here on a day by day basis. that was one of the things they noted in their diaries, what the weather was. probably the most common thing they talked about was the boredom of being a prisoner of war, and wishing they were home. as one prisoner noted in his diary, every moment is wasted. there was one set of brothers and onee from illinois, of them had come to texas in the early 1850's and his gender brothers stayed in illinois. and they had lost contact, and

one evening this prisoner looks at the guard over the wall and says what is your name. what is it to you, yank? because i think you are my brother. and behold, it was his brother and the guard moved back to illinois and they are buried side-by-side in illinois, one with a confederate tombstone and one with a union tombstone. escape attempts were very common. we can identify about 97 people eaks.made successful br when the stockade was expanded, and the original stockade the locks were probably 16 feet out of the ground and when it was expanded they cut them to six feet and the final stockade was only about six feet tall, so it wasn't hard to get out. the problem was making it 300 but evenunion lines,

so nearly 100 men made good and escape from here. some of them spent better than two years in captivity. i can think of the horrors if you are a maine boy doing your first texas summer with no shelter. we hope that they can understand that these were people fighting for our freedoms. they were union soldiers from every state in the nation, with the exception of delaware and vermont. and hopefully they can appreciate what our forebears suffered to give us our freedom. ♪ c-span buses traveling across the country on our 50-capitals tour. top in is on its 38th juneau, alaska, asking what is the most important issue in alaska? >> what i think is the most important issue facing alaska is

, we are in the middle of a budget crisis. we are used to having a lot of oil money come in, and as a result of lower oil prices we aren't getting that revenue that we are used to. other revenue streams that need to happen but it doesn't seem to be happening very fast. there are political reasons why people are worried about implementing taxes, but without additional revenue coming in, alaskans are facing a lot of crisis in a lot of areas. one is the opioid and substance abuse crisis. goes down,r economy the more and more people get upset and aren't living their lives in a way they are happy with, so they end up getting destitute and turning to self-medicating, and that is a big crisis. >> the most important issues child hunger and taking care of children. it is all linked to poverty. debt -- 40% of child hunger, food insecurity

with children in the state of years ago. went down and now we are going way back up to we have to start giving off -- we have to stop giving all our money to oil companies and start paying for our children for the future. is ae tourism industry huge chunk of our economy and it is growing by leaps and bounds. we are very concerned about the ability to promote juneau and the state at a nationwide level, especially since tourism and the tourism industry is such a bright spot in our economy. >> i have been here a week in alaska, and one of the big social-service issues that i see is homelessness, and trying to combat it seems to be a real issue with the city. a lot of them aren't actively seeking help. seem to beat are moving from place to place,

looking for different types of eight they can get. but it seems like one of the big andes is that homelessness, how we can combat it and fight it in the state. the executive director of the alaska council of school administrators. from our perspective, the most important thing in alaska is to get a long-term, sustainable fiscal plan in place for our state, which has ongoing revenue outside of our nonrenewable resources. and primarily, we need to stabilize education across the state. our educators need to feel that their funding, which is a constitutional duty in alaska, is stable so they can stabilize their schools, and most important for all of us is to educate our students. and the best way to do that is a stable school. >> be sure to join us july 21 july 22 when week feature our visit to alaska.

watch alaska weekend on c-span, c-span.org and listen on the free c-span radio app read ♪ >> this weekend on afterwards, maryland congressman john delaney, the first democrat to declare a run for the presidency in 2020 offers his vision for america in his book "the right answer: how we can unify our divided nation." he is interviewed by donna azil, former chair of the democratic national committee. book call for an end of partisanship, especially partisanship that rewards division. what do you mean? >> i think a president, or any other elected leader in this country, should effectively represent everyone, whether they voted for them or not. and they should almost take a pledge never to divide us.

that doesn't mean that they don't go out there and say why they should vote for me over the other person or why my ideas are better than the other person's but taking it to the step where you are actually cultivating a spirit of division is one of the things going on in this country right now, which is insidious. and i think if you have the privilege of serving, which i feel like i do, we should all, in addition to swearing to defend and protect the constitution, we should really pledge to the american people that we are not going to say things to divide us, that we are going to go out of our way to try to unify the country, because the country is inherently stronger when we are unified. >> watch afterwards sunday night 30 -- 9:30 eastern, on book tv. now live at gettysburg

college in pennsylvania, for more on the civil war institute's annual conference. green, whoe wilson talks about the battle of the crater during the siege of petersburg. you are watching american history tv on c-span3. >> good afternoon. i'm peter carmichael director of the civil war institute europe gettysburg college and also a member of the history department. it is my pleasure this afternoon to welcome a. wilson green. a.