Two young cousins and their fathers become involved in events leading up to abolitionist John Brown's raid on the federal armory at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, in 1859.
Just when twelve-year-old George Adams has begun to settle into life in Richmond, Virginia, the state secedes from the Union, and George joins the boys he has become friends with when they enlist to fight for the Confederacy.
In 1862, having left his uncle's farm in Pennsylvania to join the Union Army, twelve-year-old Thomas experiences the bloody horror of the Battle of Antietam.
While Thomas and George seem destined to represent their opposing sides at the Battle of Gettysburg, Mary's recovery may be the only thing that can stop her brother and cousin from killing each other.
In 1862, two young girls, one a member of an aid society that helps the wounded, and the other who, disguised as a boy, is a soldier in the Union army, find themselves working together at the battle of Antietam.
