I find that the report of the Smithsonian Institute gives the average annual rainfall in the section around Andersonville, at fifty-six inches —­nearly five feet—­while that of foggy England is only thirty-two.  Our experience would lead me to think that we got the five feet all at once.

We first comers, who had huts, were measurably better off than the later arrivals.  It was much drier in our leaf-thatched tents, and we were spared much of the annoyance that comes from the steady dash of rain against the body for hours.

The condition of those who had no tents was truly pitiable.

They sat or lay on the hill-side the live-long day and night, and took the washing flow with such gloomy composure as they could muster.

All soldiers will agree with me that there is no campaigning hardship comparable to a cold rain.  One can brace up against the extremes of heat and cold, and mitigate their inclemency in various ways.  But there is no escaping a long-continued, chilling rain.  It seems to penetrate to the heart, and leach away the very vital force.

The only relief attainable was found in huddling over little fires kept alive by small groups with their slender stocks of wood.  As this wood was all pitch-pine, that burned with a very sooty flame, the effect upon the appearance of the hoverers was, startling.  Face, neck and hands became covered with mixture of lampblack and turpentine, forming a coating as thick as heavy brown paper, and absolutely irremovable by water alone.  The hair also became of midnight blackness, and gummed up into elflocks of fantastic shape and effect.  Any one of us could have gone on the negro minstrel stage, without changing a hair, and put to blush the most elaborate make-up of the grotesque burnt-cork artists.

No wood was issued to us.  The only way of getting it was to stand around the gate for hours until a guard off duty could be coaxed or hired to accompany a small party to the woods, to bring back a load of such knots and limbs as could be picked up.  Our chief persuaders to the guards to do us this favor were rings, pencils, knives, combs, and such trifles as we might have in our pockets, and, more especially, the brass buttons on our uniforms.  Rebel soldiers, like Indians, negros and other imperfectly civilized people, were passionately fond of bright and gaudy things.  A handful of brass buttons would catch every one of them as swiftly and as surely as a piece of red flannel will a gudgeon.  Our regular fee for an escort for three of us to the woods was six over-coat or dress-coat buttons, or ten or twelve jacket buttons.  All in the mess contributed to this fund, and the fuel obtained was carefully guarded and husbanded.

This manner of conducting the wood business is a fair sample of the management, or rather the lack of it, of every other detail of prison administration.  All the hardships we suffered from lack of fuel and shelter could have been prevented without the slightest expense or trouble to the Confederacy.  Two hundred men allowed to go out on parole, and supplied with ages, would have brought in from the adjacent woods, in a week’s time, enough material to make everybody comfortable tents, and to supply all the fuel needed.