After falling out with his family over the issues of slavery and secession during Christmas of 1860, John returns to Pennsylvania, while John's brothers Matthew, Mark, and Luke join the Confederate Army. John's cousins, Malachy and Jake Hale, join the Union Army. The Hales' youngest child, 16-year-old James, lies about his age to join the Union Army, but contracts dysentery and dies before he sees any action. Caught "betwixt and between", John will not fight for the South, but is unwilling to bear arms against his own brothers. After being reunited with Jonas Steele, who has joined the Union Army as a scout, John becomes a war correspondent for "Harper's Weekly". Jonas is commissioned to use his detective skills (being a former Pinkerton detective) to investigate a series of gruesome war crimes. Meanwhile, John travels with the Union Army and witnesses many of the important events of the Civil War, including First Bull Run, the Peninsula Campaign, the Siege of Vicksburg, Battle of the Wilderness (where his brother Mark is killed in front of him), Lee's surrender at Appomattox and Abraham Lincoln's assassination.