When Charles Cox, a young Quaker from Indiana, slips out early one morning to enlist in the Union Army, he scandalizes his family and his community. Leaving behind the strict ways of Quaker life, Cox is soon confronted with the savagery of battle, the cruelty of the enemy (as well as of his fellow soldiers), and the overwhelming strangeness of the world beyond his home. He clings to his faith and family through letters with his sister, Fanny, who faces her own trials at home: betrayal, death, and a church that seems ready to fracture under the stress of the war.