Washington City, United States
Spring 1847.
Washington no longer felt like the same city it was before the war.
Even before sunrise, smoke already floated above the capital.
Not from fires.
From factories.
Rail yards near the city stayed active all night now. Steam locomotives hissed loudly while workers loaded crates of ammunition, steel, food, and equipment onto endless supply trains heading south. Foundries burned coal day and night, filling the air with smoke thick enough that some mornings the city looked covered in gray fog.
The streets felt dirtier too.
Muddier.
Louder.
Everywhere people looked, something was being built.
New workshops.
New rail lines.
New factories.
America was changing fast because of the war.
Too fast.
And most people could feel it.
Inside the War Department, exhaustion hung over the building like another layer of smoke.
