Phyllis Hall Haislip

In 1862, a ten-year-old girl and an old woman start a new life after they escape a slave trader and are rescued by Union soldiers, who take them as "contraband of war" to Fortress Monroe in Hampton, Virginia.

In June 1864, twelve-year-old Luca and his friend Jim join Luca's grandfather and the other old men and boys of Petersburg, Virginia, to defend the city from the advancing Union army.

As the Revolutionary War progresses, eleven-year-old Teddy, upset by the conflicts between his Patriot father and Loyalist mother, mistakenly joins the wrong unit of his local Williamsburg, Virginia, regiment and, as a member of the fife and drum corps, marches to South Carolina to participate in the Battle of Camden in August 1780.