Heavy showers all
day to near evening. The ground is soaked; thousands walk or lay in mud without
covering unless they are among those who have some frail shelter, the latter
being but a small percentage of the whole. I feel fortunate to share the frail
shelter of worthy comrades. It does much to ward off sun and storm; but our bed
in the sand is exposed. We dig trenches to prevent water from running over it,
still it soaks through. Water comes from the upper part in swift brooklets,
sweeping every pool of foulness below. I will record, and hope I may not refer
to it again, this fact: Men unable to go to the swamp sinks, have holes dug
close by where they lay. The rains wash these away or overflow them, and the
filthy contents are carried into our resting places. These violent storms
render the condition of the sick more sad. I met J. B. Hawks of Michigan, and
Peter Shaffer, 22nd N. Y. cavalry, who resides in Nelson, N. Y., today. Shaffer
was taken May 8th on a cavalry raid, was robbed of everything except his
clothes, including $50.
SOURCE: John Worrell
Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville
and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 71
