Chris Brabson is full of hate. He hates the Yankee soldiers who are camping in his beloved Tennessee woods; he hates their snotty Northern ways and their belief that they know what's best for the South; he hates that they've taken all of his family's food to feed their own troops. And he hates that his own brother has joined the Union side of the war when, to Chris, it is clear that the Confederacy is the side to fight for. When his hatred proves more powerful than good sense, Chris spies for the Confederates, revealing that a Union wagon train is camped in a valley near his home—and his brother is probably in that train. Caught in the bitter battle at dawn, Chris discovers that in war, nothing is clear-cut—good and bad are equally laid to waste by the horrors of the battlefield.