Talk of impending war is a steady drumbeat throughout North Carolina though Joetta McBride pays it little heed. She and her husband Ennis have built a modest but happy life for themselves raising two sons fifteen-year-old Henry and eleven-year-old Robert on their small subsistence farm. They do not support the Confederacys position on slavery but Joetta considers her family to be neutral believing this is simply not their fight. Her opinion is not favored by many in their community including Joettas own father-in-law Rudean. A staunch Confederate supporter he fills his grandsons heads with stories about the glory of battle and the Southern cause until one night Henry runs off to join the war. At Joettas frantic insistence Ennis leaves to find their son and bring him home.
