This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,

the show where America is the star and the American people.

If you want to know about the history of America, it's important that you know the role

that the Bible played in the shaping of our country. Our founding fathers, Christian and

non-Christian alike, were heavily influenced by the best-selling book of all time.

Here to share another story is Robert Morgan, who's the author of 100 Bible verses that

made America, defining moments that shaped our enduring foundation of faith.

Let's take a listen.

Several years ago, a West Point graduate who's a friend of mine drove with me down to Andersonville, Georgia,

to visit the National Prisoner of War Museum and to see the old Confederate P.O.W. Camp.

And to see with my own eyes as I wanted to do the water source known as Providence Spring.

The story behind this spring is one of the most remarkable in American history.

I found several accounts of this story by various soldiers who were imprisoned there at the time.

I'm going to share one as told by a man named John L. Mail, M-A-I-L-E.

When the Civil War erupted,

Mail was a Michigan teenager who enlisted with the Union Army, served bravely and rose to the rank of lieutenant.

During the Battle of the Wilderness, he was captured and shipped in a cattle car

to this infamous POW camp at Andersonville deep in the heart of Georgia on May 23, 1864.

The prison was really just an open meadow of 26 acres surrounded by a 15-foot-high stockade fence. Pigeon roost were manned by guards ready to shoot any prisoner who crossed the

deadline that framed the interior of the stockade. The fort was built to house 10,000 prisoners,

but mail found himself crammed among 33,000,

...