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horses’ hooves. The animals slung the gloppy mess onto the sidewalks and her trouser legs. Open ditches were filed with carcasses and sewage, which poisoned the air, gagging her with the stench of death and decay.
    Although she’d had little sleep in the past two days, she was awake enough to know the Washington she knew was barely recognizable beneath the dirt and grime. They trotted their horses down Maryland Avenue toward the Capitol Building with its partially constructed dome. In the distance the Washington Monument was an unfinished, truncated shaft.
    The dull rumbling of heavy army wagons across cobblestone and the steady tramp of marching feet met them as they turned down Pennsylvania Avenue. The grand city of the future was nothing more than a grimy military fortress and an incubator for typhoid and other diseases.
    Charlotte’s stomach growled, but she was afraid to eat anything unless she personally witnessed the food cooked, boiled, baked, or burned. The coffee, however, was cooked so black and thick germs couldn’t survive. She wasn’t so sure her stomach could, either.
    Her vaccinations wouldn’t completely protect her from the onslaught of germs which she knew outnumbered and outgunned the enemy here. Under such unsanitary conditions, disease could wipe out the city’s entire population. Wherever she was going, she prayed for a hot bath and thoroughly cooked, edible food. She was as grubby as she’d ever been in her life.
    The patrol continued along the avenue toward the White House. She knew Lincoln walked over to the War Department several times a day, and she hoped she might see him going by. She studied the faces of the men on both sides of the street, searching for the tall, gaunt President.
    Her escort stopped in front of the White House. Although the building didn’t have the additions made in the 1900’s, the mansion was clearly recognizable.
    “Are we…going inside?” Charlotte asked in a halting voice. The last time she’d been in the White House was six months before her mother died. Charlotte never thought she’d return. Never wanted to, in fact.
    “Those are my orders,” the company captain said.
    She dismounted and stretched. Although horseback riding had been part of her life growing up, her busy medical practice didn’t leave much time for riding. As a result, she’d be saddle sore for the next few days.
    Days? She didn’t have days. Jack would be sick with worry, and her absence would create havoc at work. What about her own distress? She’d fallen through some kind of frigging time warp and her life and her family’s property had been threatened. Whatever the Union Army wanted her to do, it had better be quick.
    She marched after the captain in charge up the steps, through the front door, and into the entrance hall. They made their way through the crowd, into the cross hall, then turned and went up the stairs to the second floor. At the top, they entered a reception room where at least a dozen men waited.
    A thin, dark-haired young man with a widow’s peak and goatee approached the captain. “Can I help you?”
    She recognized Lincoln’s secretary, John Nicolay, from old photographs in Jack’s Civil War collection.
    The captain handed Nicolay an envelope. “From General Sheridan.”
    “I’ll make sure the President receives this.”
    The captain cleared his throat and nodded toward Charlotte. “The letter refers to this surgeon.” Then he lowered his voice. “We gave him a Union coat. Didn’t think he should come in here dressed in Confederate gray.”
    “Oh, I see,” Nicolay said. “Wait here.”
    A few minutes later, Nicolay returned. “Mr. Lincoln wishes to relay his thanks to General Sheridan,” he said to the captain. Then to Charlotte he said, “If you’ll follow me, the President will see you now.”
    She gulped and pushed aside all thoughts of why she was flung into another time or how she was going to get home. The Make-a-Wish Foundation,