The air inside the ward hangs thick with the smell of disinfectant and old linen, a silence broken only by the coughing of men who fought under different flags. I sit by the window watching the sun dip low over the Potomac, my own body trembling in its chair, listening to the quiet rhythm of breaths that should have been taken long ago. These walls hold more than just new injuries; they keep the ghosts of the past while the fever still burns in the bones of those who survived the battle but not the aftermath.