[1] In 1862, Mr. March, an abolitionist and chaplain in the Union Army, is driven by his conscience to leave his home and family in Concord, Massachusetts, to participate in the war.

While in hospital, he has an unexpected meeting with Grace, an intelligent and literate black nurse whom he first met as a young woman staying in a large house where she was enslaved.

The novel accurately reflects Bronson Alcott's principles, notably his belief that boys and girls of all races had a right to education and his wish to follow a vegetarian diet.

[2] Teresa Nielsen Hayden has compared the novel to fan fiction, saying that the only difference is that Brooks, Alcott, and publisher Viking Press are "dreadfully respectable."

"The author lives near the site of the battle where, on Oct. 21, 1861, on a steep bluff overlooking the Potomac River, Union forces were flanked and routed by Confederate troops.