Fourth book of a Civil War family saga, the youngest Bryant daughter who runs away to rescue her fiancé from a prison-of-war camp.
Mary Lou Bryant is Seventeen-years-old when she hears news that her fiancé has been captured by the Union during the battle of Gettysburg. She steals her brothers uniform and runs away, traveling from her home in south Georgia to Point Lookout Maryland, determined to rescue him from certain death.
On her way she meets Jeb, a Confederate Sergeant. Jeb takes her to Point Lookout and she discovers that her fiancé is dead. Jeb is entrusted to escort her home to Georgia but along the way she learns that he is a Union spy and she is his prisoner. She is tricked into marrying him, comes face to face with Sherman and is almost killed along the road to home. Jeb concedes to take her the rest of the way home and she learns that her fiancé's death was faked, but she is already married to the Union spy whose mission was to kill her fiancé in the first place.
The road to home provides many challenges to the naive Mary Lou, but she has yet to face her greatest challenge, her own husband and the failing war that may ultimately be the death of the Bryant's of Shady Creek.