The story is narrated in the first person by Amantha Starr, the daughter of a Kentucky plantation owner, whose life is thrown into turmoil when she is sold into slavery to pay her father's debts.

She is bought in New Orleans by Hamish Bond, a man who, as if defending her honor, violently stops a potential buyer from inspecting her.

After Amantha plans to escape, she confronts Hamish about having her watched and followed, and he responds that she can leave and that he will even arrange her travel to the North whenever she desires.

Months later, a wealthy visitor to the plantation attempts to rape Amantha, but Rau-Ru interrupts and beats him severely.

Tobias leads a black regiment, and he acts righteously amid the temptations and corruption in the final months of the War.

[2][3][4] Prescott called the novel "a readable and dramatic combination of flamboyant melodrama and thoughtful reflection about moral issues and psychological factors," and described it as "thoroughly entertaining.

"[3] In the Chicago Tribune Magazine of Books, Paul Engle wrote a mostly positive review, stating that while some elements of the plot "strain belief," the whole is rendered in "that wonderfully flexible, imaginative, lyrical, and yet rock solid prose which is Warren's particular genius," making the novel "the unique triumph of 1955 in fiction.

"[5] Arthur Mizener reviewed the book in The New York Times, praising Warren's "beautifully disciplined historical imagination" and his construction of a wide variety of complex characters.

While he noted that mixing in weighty ruminations can be effective, in Band of Angels, they "are carried to extremes, and their constant reiteration makes them seem like an obsession."

"[6] Prescott called the philosophical and reflective parts of the novel "provocative" but "opaque," and wrote that Amantha's narrative voice and her internal thoughts often "seem Mr. Warren's and not hers.

"[7] In 1957, a film adaptation was released by Warner Bros., directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Clark Gable, Sidney Poitier, and Yvonne DeCarlo.