The Civil War is in its early stages when Joshua Stone leaves his home in rural North Carolina to help protect his family and to seek adventure. Joshua is taken to a training camp where he learns to soldier and becomes close to five other recruits who are his tent mates. He experiences war first hand at the battle of Fredericksburg. There he kills three enemysoldiers. He then begins to question the rightness of taking another life. One dark night, at the battle of Chancellorsville, he shoots a shadowy figure who turns out to be his own general Stonewall Jackson. From this point forward he can no longer shoot at another man. His group of buddies dwindles to three. And now he is running across the fields atGettysburg as a part of Picketts charge. His two remaining companions are killed and he leaves something on the battlefield that will tie him to Stonewall Jackson for the rest of his life.
The story explores the issues of the justified killing of another human being, the treatment of negroes and the effects of war on soldiers both physically and mentally.
