The continuing saga of one family trapped in the crucible of the Civil War.

Following the defeat of Confederate forces at Chattanooga in November 1863, the battered Rebel army, including a bitter Cory Brannon, retreats slowly toward Atlanta. A large Union army led by Gen. William Sherman is marching to the coastal city of Savannah, laying waste to the territory through which it passes. Meanwhile, the Brannon family farm in Culpeper County, Virginia, is now behind enemy lines, the great plantation house in ruins. Titus is off fighting with Mosby's Rangers and Henry has been removed as sheriff. To everyone's surprise, Cordelia is courted by one of the Union officers, a Yankee she finds herself unable to hate. As Cory is trapped in Savannah, surrounded by Sherman's marauding hordes, despair grips the Confederacy. Fractured and defeated at every turn, the nation asks itself how much longer it can continue to fight.