joining us is leslie gordon --professor lesley gordon. professor gordon, thanks for joining us.fessor gordon: thank you. host: can we start with a little bit of what you talked about in your speech as far as survivors of andersonville, can you give us a sense of what a survivor had to go through? in theor gordon: research i did, it's representative of many of the theivors that endured imprisonment here. if they made it their andersonville, it didn't mean necessarily their imprisonment was over. many were transferred out of it on to other prisons, they were infting prisoners to prisons troublesome, florence, and so many might have died there. they were going to put all caps. in those last weeks or months, that was the experience of the bureaucracy of the army. they waited to be formally exchanged. the accounts and some of the men i studied, one of them in particular, this one soldier named george robbins talked about the journey home on the train, he called at the climax of his suffering, that was even worse because he was in an overcrowded train, and he was overwhelmed and exhau

host: for leslie gordon, david from utah. go ahead.ite for andersonville list 32 union soldiers who successfully escaped from andersonville. my distant relative was one of them, his name was john eager. -- it wanted by chance wondered by chance of she knew anything about him. he ended up dying in ohio at a military hospital in 1878. she had leg injuries that he developed at andersonville. i know it's a long shot, i wondered if she knew anything about him. i'm sorry, idon: don't. that's quite a remarkable story. there were not that many escapes. it was very hard to get out of here. that's something that your relative did make it out. i think it also speaks to, as you said, he still suffered from the experience of being here. there were escapes. from the 16th, some of the officers -- officers weren't kept her, but some officers and ended up in charleston, for example, they escaped. there has been some new work done on this question of escaped prisoners. need more work on this. we don't know as much about these stories. i don't know, i'm

joining us is leslie gordon --professor lesley gordon. professor gordon, thanks for joining us.ssor gordon: thank you. host: can we start with a little bit of what you talked about in your speech as far as survivors of andersonville, can you give us a sense of what a survivor had to go through? in theor gordon: research i did, it's representative of many of the theivors that endured imprisonment here. if they made it their andersonville, it didn't mean necessarily their imprisonment was over. many were transferred out of it on to other prisons, they were infting prisoners to prisons troublesome, florence, and so many might have died there. they were going to put all caps. in those last weeks or months, that was the experience of the bureaucracy of the army. they waited to be formally exchanged. the accounts and some of the men i studied, one of them in particular, this one soldier named george robbins talked about the journey home on the train, he called at the climax of his suffering, that was even worse because he was in an overcrowded train, and he was overwhelmed and exhaust

our guest eric leonard, the former andersonville chief of interpretation and leslie gordon, university of akron history professor. this program is about three hours. >>> good afternoon. you're watching american history tv on c-span and you are looking at a historic image of camp sumter, also known as the andersonville prison. now we take you live to the andersonville national historic site and cemetery in andersonville, georgia, for the next three hours taking your phone calls and watching a commemorative funeral for the 13,000 prisoners of war who died here. joining us is eric leonard. he's the former chief of interpretation at the andersonvil andersonvil andersonville historic site. we are also opening up our phone lines so that you can join in on the conversation. if to give us a call and ask questions, 202-748-7900 in the eastern time zones. if you want to send us a tweet, do so @cspanhistory. thank you for joining us this afternoon. >> it's my pleasure to be here. >> let's start with what is andersonville for someone who does not know. where does it fall? >> it's important to star

>> a good example and leslie gordon may speak to this later today, sergeant major robert ma kellog ofthe 16th connecticut . infantry, his entire regiment is held here. when he is released in exchange from south carolina in late 1864, he goes to camp parole. he turns his journal, his diaryr into a book.re -- it is published in march of 186 while the prison is a functional place. because of that book, he is called to testify. kellog testifies as both the prosecution and the defense.he i both sides speak to this one nt individual soldier and say we trust everything he says. he's very blunt about describing the conditions.specif he has a very specific story about henry wurts, an almost humorous merciful story that ann happens with kellog where he ism st on a wood gathering detail. he asks permission to use his d. pocket knife to dig up a root as extra food. he's given that permission, but before he's done, he's told to leave. he when he approaches the prison gate, he realizes he's left his pocket knife behind. only a sergeant major would do r this. he goes to the first officer he sees and