The intense heat led men to drink great quantities of water, and this superinduced malignant dropsical complaints, which, next to diarrhea, scurvy and gangrene, were the ailments most active in carrying men off.  Those affected in this way swelled up frightfully from day to day.  Their clothes speedily became too small for them, and were ripped off, leaving them entirely naked, and they suffered intensely until death at last came to their relief.  Among those of my squad who died in this way, was a young man named Baxter, of the Fifth Indiana Cavalry, taken at Chicamauga.  He was very fine looking—­tall, slender, with regular features and intensely black hair and eyes; he sang nicely, and was generally liked.  A more pitiable object than he, when last I saw him, just before his death, can not be imagined.  His body had swollen until it seemed marvelous that the human skin could bear so much distention without disruption, All the old look of bright intelligence had been. driven from his face by the distortion of his features.  His swarthy hair and beard, grown long and ragged, had that peculiar repulsive look which the black hair of the sick is prone to assume.

I attributed much of my freedom from the diseases to which others succumbed to abstention from water drinking.  Long before I entered the army, I had constructed a theory—­on premises that were doubtless as insufficient as those that boyish theories are usually based upon—­that drinking water was a habit, and a pernicious one, which sapped away the energy.  I took some trouble to curb my appetite for water, and soon found that I got along very comfortably without drinking anything beyond that which was contained in my food.  I followed this up after entering the army, drinking nothing at any time but a little coffee, and finding no need, even on the dustiest marches, for anything more.  I do not presume that in a year I drank a quart of cold water.  Experience seemed to confirm my views, for I noticed that the first to sink under a fatigue, or to yield to sickness, were those who were always on the lookout for drinking water, springing from their horses and struggling around every well or spring on the line of march for an opportunity to fill their canteens.

I made liberal use of the Creek for bathing purposes, however, visiting it four or five times a, day during the hot days, to wash myself all over.  This did not cool one off much, for the shallow stream was nearly as hot as the sand, but it seemed to do some good, and it helped pass away the tedious hours.  The stream was nearly all the time filled as full of bathers as they could stand, and the water could do little towards cleansing so many.  The occasional rain storms that swept across the prison were welcomed, not only because they cooled the air temporarily, but because they gave us a shower-bath.  As they came up, nearly every one stripped naked and got out where he could enjoy the full benefit of the falling water.  Fancy, if possible, the spectacle of twenty-five thousand or thirty thousand men without a stitch of clothing upon them.  The like has not been seen, I imagine, since the naked followers of Boadicea gathered in force to do battle to the Roman invaders.