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.
It was impossible to get really clean.

Our bodies seemed covered with a varnish-like, gummy matter that defied removal by water alone.
I imagined that it came from the rosin or turpentine, arising from the little pitch pine fires over which we hovered when cooking our rations.
It would yield to nothing except strong soap-and soap, as I have before stated--was nearly as scarce in the Southern Confederacy as salt.